Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu has been accused at the Madlanga Commission of trying to interfere with murder investigations, pressuring senior officers, and attempting to coerce an undercover Crime Intelligence operative into lying under oath about political killings in KwaZulu-Natal.
The explosive claims emerged on Monday as public hearings at the Madlanga Commission – which is probing criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system – resumed.
Two key witnesses, KwaZulu-Natal acting deputy police commissioner Major-General Anthony Gopaul and an undercover Crime Intelligence officer known only as Witness E, painted a picture of a minister who allegedly meddled in sensitive investigations and tried to shape evidence in his favour.
Minister ‘wanted control’ of ward councillor cases
Gopaul told the commission that after ANC councillor Phendukani Mabhida was gunned down in February 2025, Mchunu called him directly and questioned why the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) was handling the case.
“I received a call from the minister on February 5. The call was about what transpired in the murder of Mabhida,” said Gopaul.
“I briefed the minister. The minister told me I need to keep him abreast of the investigation. I told the minister I was not investigating the murder, as it was being investigated by the PKTT.
“He asked why the PKTT was investigating the case, as he had instructed it be ‘investigated by the station where the crime occurred’,” said Gopaul.
He was asked not to give details of the murder itself to avoid further trauma for the victim’s family.
Gopaul said this was not the only time the minister intervened. In a second interaction, Mchunu contacted him about the docket of a case involving MK Party councillor Doeshie Govender, saying the community had complained about the councillor.
Gopaul said the reason police had submitted to the minister’s demands was simple: “he was their boss.”
Witness E: minister tried to script my evidence
Shortly after Gopaul’s testimony, the commission heard from Witness E, an undercover Crime Intelligence officer who has been in the witness protection programme since 2019.
The officer has long claimed that Crime Intelligence leadership failed to act when he warned them in 2017 about a plot to murder Sindiso Magaqa, then ANC Youth League secretary-general and a councillor in the Umzimkhulu local municipality.
Witness E told the commission that, in 2017, he had recruited a member of a cash-in-transit gang as an informant. That informant and his fellow gang members later became the alleged hitmen who killed Magaqa.
He testified that, in 2017, a Crime Intelligence informant told him about a plot to murder ANC Youth League secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa.
He said the killers themselves told him they had been hired to murder Magaqa within two weeks. He warned his superiors, and pleaded that the AK-47 and a car he claimed were given to the alleged killer by Crime Intelligence be taken away. His warnings went unheeded, and Magaqa later died in a hail of bullets.
On Monday, Witness E said that, years later, Mchunu had tried to use him to reshape the story about who did – and did not – act on those warnings.
‘He is trying to coerce me to testify in a manner favourable to him’
An undercover Crime Intelligence officer – identified only as Witness E because he is in the witness protection programme – took the stand at the Madlanga Commission on Monday.
An undercover Crime Intelligence officer says suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu tried to persuade him to lie to the Madlanga Commission about the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) – and the failure of Crime Intelligence leadership to investigate how its own officers were implicated in the Sindiso Magaqa murder.
“I want to emphasise that since the beginning of the Madlanga Commission on 17 September 2025, Minister Mchunu consistently phones me, and the number of calls is skyrocketing. He is trying to coerce me to testify at the Madlanga Commission in a manner favourable to him,” the officer, identified as “Witness E”, told the commission on Monday.
“In the phone call, I ended up conceding that I will testify at the Madlanga Commission.”
Witness E testified that Mchunu had contacted him just over a month ago, on 10 December 2025, and tried to dictate what he should say in his statement to the commission about the PKTT and Crime Intelligence.
Among other things, he added, Mchunu wanted him to state that Crime Intelligence had “bought unlicensed firearms and stolen cars through the Secret Service account, and these guns and cars were handed over” to a Crime Intelligence informant and his fellow hitman, who were eventually hired to kill Magaqa.
The minister wanted him to say that, after the PKTT was established in 2018, the task team had obtained a statement from him about the involvement of Crime Intelligence officers in Magaqa’s murder, Witness E said.
According to him, Mchunu wanted him to record that Crime Intelligence head General Dumisani Khumalo had headed the PKTT from 2018.
Mchunu also wanted him to state that “to date, General Khumalo has never done anything about the information that I gave pertaining to the involvement of Crime Intelligence members, even though he is the head of Crime Intelligence”, Witness E said.
In addition, the minister wanted him to incorrectly reflect that he (Mchunu) and Witness E had first engaged in 2025 about what the witness contended was the punishment he had faced as a Crime Intelligence whistleblower, as well as the lack of professional progression he had suffered as a result.
In fact, Witness E said that Mchunu had called him on 7 December 2024 – just weeks before the minister disbanded the PKTT.
‘He was encouraging you to lie?’ – ‘I believe so, yes’
After he confirmed he had never prepared the statement that Mchunu had suggested, Commissioner Sandile Khumalo pressed him on the implications.
Khumalo asked him, if he had drafted the statement along the lines suggested by the minister, “would you not be lying to the commission if you presented a statement that reads along the lines of those paragraphs”?
Asked to repeat the question, Khumalo again asked: “Would that statement not be lying to this commission? For example, you gave an example about paragraph 5. You said it was not in August 2025; it was in 2024.”
Witness E agreed that his first engagement with Mchunu had been in December 2024.
He said:
So, if I drafted a statement like this and I signed it under oath, the statement was going to be a false statement.
Khumalo then asked Witness E if Mchunu “was encouraging you to lie to this commission”.
Witness E: “I believe so, yes.”
He added that Mchunu knew the statements he wanted included were false, because the emails about his grievance against Crime Intelligence’s treatment of him were sent in December 2024.
Attempts to implicate Khumalo and Cele
Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu allegedly interfered with investigations into the cases of ward councillors, coerced a witness to lie to the Madlanga commission and tried to implicate the crime intelligence boss in the killing of Sindiso Magaqa.
Shortly after Gopaul concluded his evidence, another police officer, who can only be referred to as Witness E, told the commission how Mchunu tried to implicate crime intelligence head Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo and former police minister Bheki Cele in Magaqa’s murder case.
Magaqa, a former ANC Youth League secretary-general, was a councillor in the Umzimkhulu local municipality when he was shot in 2017.
Witness E said that on December 7, 2024, he received a call from Mchunu asking him about the Magaqa case and the role played by senior crime intelligence officials in Magaqa’s execution.
He said that after he gave Mchunu the names of the implicated officials, the minister asked if Khumalo was involved in the plot. He told the minister Khumalo was not part of crime intelligence and he was also not in KZN at the time.
He said Mchunu then asked if Cele was involved, and he responded that Cele was not the minister at the time.
‘He was trying to recruit me to testify in a manner favourable to him’
In earlier testimony about his first phone call with Mchunu, Witness E said the minister told him that “he heard a lot about me and that I have information about the killing of Mr Sindiso Magaqa and other ANC councillors in KZN”.
Mchunu also referenced the fact that he had information about “Crime Intelligence officials who were involved in the planning and killing of Mr Sindiso Magaqa”, he added.
In particular, he asked me who are the SAPS officials who were involved in the planning and the killing, and I told him who those officials were and what their role was in the killing of Magaqa.
Asked by commissioner Sesi Baloyi what exactly Mchunu wanted him to say in his evidence, Witness E said the minister had complained that the PKTT had been credited with solving the Magaqa murder when he (Witness E) had in fact helped secure a key conviction.
“He said, ‘You see, they are saying it’s PKTT that achieved this conviction, but they are not mentioning you.’ He knew that I was part of the people who were participating in that conviction, but he wanted to say I must come to the commission and tell the commission that it’s not the PKTT that achieved that conviction, but it was myself who achieved that conviction,” he added.
That is why I say … he was trying to, to recruit me to testify in a manner that is favourable to him.
Witness E revealed that Mchunu’s calls to him skyrocketed whenever a witness relevant to the minister’s conduct was testifying at the commission, though he said he had only been able to provide call logs from two days in December last year. He was confident cellphone records would confirm the full pattern of communication.
Push to find ‘victims’ of PKTT and reach a State witness
‘The minister started pressurising me regarding the PKTT. He asked me if I knew of any victims of the PKTT or if I had any documents or reports that were damaging to the PKTT, and if I had them, I should send them to [his spokesperson] Kamogelo Mogotsi,” Witness E said.
“I informed him that I do not know of any victims of the PKTT because I have never worked with them. He then said that I should look for the victims and/or evidence of people who were victimised by the PKTT and, should I find any, I should forward that information to Kamogelo Mogotsi.”
Witness E revealed that, after being put on special leave by President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mchunu wanted to meet Sibusiso Ncengwa, who pleaded guilty to Magaqa’s murder after turning State witness on 7 July 2025 – the day after KZN police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi held a press conference attacking the minister’s decision to disband the PKTT.
He said he told the minister to attempt to contact Ncengwa through the case’s investigator or prosecutor. At the time, he confirmed that Mchunu was fully aware that Ncengwa was a State witness (and a confessed murderer).
“I advised him that even if he went to the prison to see Mr Ncengwa, the prison officials will notify the [investigating officer] to be present during the interview … because he is now a State witness,” Witness E added.
In response, Mchunu asked if it would “work” if he arranged an interview with Ncengwa through the national commissioner of correctional services, Makgothi Thobakgale.
Witness E said he told the minister that the investigating officer in the case would be informed, regardless of how the meeting was arranged.
It was at this point that he decided to reach out to the investigating officer in the Magaqa murder case and “inform him that this was becoming too much for me”, and he wanted him to talk to Khumalo.
When the investigator asked whether he would be prepared to make a statement about what had transpired between him and Mchunu, Witness E said he “informed him that I was willing to depose to a statement”.
He later provided that statement to the police.
Clash over disbanded task team
These allegations land in the middle of a wider fight about the PKTT and political killings in KwaZulu-Natal.
At a press conference in July last year, KZN police commissioner Mkhwanazi argued that Mchunu’s 31 December 2024 decision to disband the PKTT – which had played a key role in the Magaqa case – was driven by a desire to protect criminals from investigation.
Mchunu, who had been police minister for just seven months when he scrapped the task team, strongly denied this, saying he was merely enforcing a long-standing policy that all murders must be treated equally and handled at station level.
He has testified that he was aware of numerous complaints about the PKTT’s conduct in criminal investigations.
Possible criminal consequences
Legal experts say the allegations aired at the commission could have serious legal implications if they are confirmed.
Legal expert Mpumelelo Zikalala said if proven, the allegation against Mchunu would be referred to law enforcement.
“The commission will make a recommendation to law enforcement to investigate and if they investigate and the allegation is proven, the minister will be charged with defeating the ends of justice,” Zikalala said.
Legal practitioner Abigail Ngobene added that forcing someone to depose a false affidavit would be a crime.
Abigail Ngobene, a legal practitioner, said forcing someone to dispose a false affidavit it would amount to perjury which is a punishable offence.
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