Brian Padayachee: No Legal Basis For This Case
IDAC investigator Brian Padayachee returned to the Madlanga Commission on Thursday 16 July 2026 for a 3rd day of testimony, in a session running over 11 hours. Commission chair Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga personally cross-examined Padayachee on whether the case against Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo and 6 co-accused had any legal basis, and Padayachee conceded that one of the actual charges against Brigadier Dineo Mokwele does not reflect what happened. IDAC maintains the case rests on Mokwele’s appointment being an act of undue gratification.
The case centres on the appointment of Brigadier Dineo Mokwele to a technical support post within crime intelligence. Khumalo, Major General Nosipho Madondo, Major General Philani Lushaba, Major General Josias Lekalakala, Major General Zwelithini Gabela, Brigadier Phindile Ncube and Mokwele herself, 7 accused in total, face fraud and corruption charges over her hiring.
Advocate Sesi Baloyi pressed Padayachee on why IDAC had gone looking into the security vetting and clearance history of officers reaching well beyond the 7 accused, some of whom have never been charged with anything, when nothing in the case docket showed a section 27 referral or a section 28 authorisation covering that specific inquiry. Padayachee could not point to either. Separately, and independently reported by other outlets covering the same hearing, Madlanga told Padayachee that without ever seeing the section 27 referral that triggered the investigation, IDAC was effectively conducting an investigation in the dark. Asked directly whether he disagreed with that assessment, Padayachee said he could not.
At another point in the hearing, Madlanga took over the questioning directly, putting it to Padayachee that he had reached a conclusion, that the panel which interviewed Mokwele was corruptly constituted, before establishing facts to support it. Padayachee eventually agreed that IDAC does not have the standing to oversee how the South African Police Service runs its own internal recruitment processes.
Evidence leader Mahlape Sello took Padayachee through his decision to show Major General Khan the case file before taking a witness statement from him about his exclusion from the interview panel. Padayachee conceded this was not proper practice. Sello also pressed him on a charge alleging Mokwele received a security clearance she was not qualified for. Padayachee agreed this was factually incorrect, as Mokwele had only begun the vetting application process, and the accused were arrested before the 6 month window to complete it had even expired.
Commissioner Sandile Khumalo put a letter to Padayachee written by IDAC director Andrea Johnson to the Director of Public Prosecutions, attaching IDAC’s own draft charge sheet. The letter shows the Director of Public Prosecutions responded that she concurred with IDAC’s decision to charge, which Commissioner Khumalo said suggested the charging decision originated inside IDAC rather than with an independent prosecutor.
The hearing also covered a bail condition, since overturned on appeal by the High Court as arbitrary, that barred the accused from entering crime intelligence premises while the case is pending. That condition was never requested by the prosecutor in open court. Under questioning from Sello and Baloyi, Padayachee admitted he had privately asked the prosecutor to seek it, for reasons tied to other, unrelated investigations IDAC has not yet completed. Baloyi put it to him that this amounted to using one case to secure a benefit in unrelated matters. Baloyi also established that IDAC, as a matter of course, applies for a warrant and arrests accused persons at the police station, rather than following SAPS’s own National Instruction 11 of 2019, which requires members to treat arrest as a last resort and prefer a summons wherever possible.
For its part, IDAC’s case is that Mokwele’s appointment amounted to undue gratification, positioning her to assist Khumalo with future unlawful conduct rather than reflecting a completed offence. It is also worth noting that SAPS’s own legal department reviewed the underlying complaints in December 2024, before Adams approached IDAC, and found them hearsay based and too vague to support criminal charges.
