- Suspended deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya admitted at the Madlanga Commission that he instructed political killings dockets be transferred, contradicting the written disbandment plan.
- Commissioner Sandile Khumalo told Sibiya the March 2025 action plan required 114 court-roll dockets to stay with current investigating officers.
Suspended deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya has admitted he gave his own instruction to transfer political killings dockets, going against a written plan that required those dockets to stay with their investigating officers.
Sibiya was on the stand at the Madlanga Commission for the third day on Friday when evidence leader Adila Hassim pointed to an amended plan. It clearly stated that dockets already before the courts must stay with investigating officers from the disbanded Political Killings Task Team (PKTT).
Hassim told Sibiya directly that the instruction to transfer those court dockets to acting Deputy National Police Commissioner Hilda Senthumule came from him, not from suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu or National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola.
Sibiya confirmed it. “It was my instruction based on my responsibility as the Deputy National Commissioner of Crime Detection,” he said.
Commissioner Sandile Khumalo pressed him further. The March 2025 PKTT disbandment action plan recorded that 114 dockets on the court roll should stay with the current investigating officers.
“You were not implementing this plan, you were implementing your own plan,” Khumalo said. Sibiya agreed.
But later in the afternoon, Sibiya changed his position, claiming again he was just following orders. The commissioners pushed back hard.
Commissioner Sesi Baloyi told Sibiya the record showed he was acting on his own initiative from January 2025, and that no instruction from the national commissioner required him to do what he did.
Sibiya pointed to both Mchunu and Masemola. “Whatever I implemented was based on a common understanding that we are acting on this directive by the minister,” he said. “No one ever expected that this could lead to this mountainous problem.”
He also said that whatever the national commissioner says is final and that he would never argue against it.
Pictured above: Shadrack Sibiya.
Image source: File
