- Two crime intelligence officers were ambushed north of Durban. One died at the scene. The other survived, was hospitalised, and died weeks later under a cloud of suspicion from his own colleagues.
- The car used in the attack was found burnt near the surviving officer’s home area, and sources say that detail alone was enough to turn his unit against him before he could defend himself.
Sergeant Mandla Khuzwayo spent his final weeks in a Durban hospital with something heavier than his injuries to carry. His own colleagues believed he had helped plan the attack that put him there.
Khuzwayo was a member of KwaZulu-Natal’s elite crime intelligence unit. On 30 April, he and Captain Louis Nel were ambushed in Mt Edgecombe, north of Durban near Verulam. Nel died at the scene. Khuzwayo survived and was rushed to hospital.
Then the suspicion started.
The vehicle used in the attack was found burnt in kwaMashu, close to Khuzwayo’s home area. For his colleagues, that detail was enough. Sources inside the unit told Scrolla that the discovery sparked a theory: that Khuzwayo had used people from his neighbourhood to carry out the attack.
The motive, according to sources, was an investigation. Nel had been looking into a cash heist gang, and sources say colleagues believed Khuzwayo had been protecting members of that gang. Killing Nel, the theory went, would end the investigation.
“Some of our colleagues believed that Khuzwayo is the one who organised the ambush with an aim to kill Captain Nel, but they claim the attack went wrong as Khuzwayo himself also got injured badly,” a source said.
Khuzwayo never responded to the rumours. Sources say the suspicion broke him.
He died over the weekend, weeks after the ambush.
“His death comes with so much relief to those who were sympathetic to him after such horrible rumours,” the source said.
At Captain Nel’s funeral, KZN Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi vowed to find the killers “dead or alive.” KZN Premier Thami Ntuli also attended the service at the Jesus Dome in Durban.
KZN police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda referred Scrolla to national spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe. Mathe did not answer calls or respond to written questions before publication.
Pictured above: Crime intelligence sergeant Mandla Khuzwayo died over the weekend in a Durban hospital, weeks after surviving an ambush in Mt Edgecombe that killed his colleague Captain Louis Nel.
Image source: Supplied
This article has been updated.
