FOKOL – Madlanga Commission: IDAC’s own witnesses say the Crime Intelligence arrests were premature
Drushantha Ramsamy was expected back at the Madlanga Commission on Tuesday, 4 August, but the day opened with Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Peter Serunye instead, with no explanation given for her absence. Serunye told the commission the arrest of Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo and 6 others was premature, carried out before the investigation was complete and before key evidence had been gathered. His account lines up with earlier testimony from IDAC investigator Mantsha Rapeshu, who described the Member of Parliament’s complaint that started the case in one word: fokol. Between the two witnesses, a picture emerges of arrests that preceded the evidence meant to justify them.
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry resumed on Tuesday, 4 August 2026, expecting the return of IDAC prosecutor Drushantha Ramsamy for the second part of her evidence. Instead, the day belonged to Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Peter Serunye. No explanation was offered for Ramsamy’s absence.
What Serunye told the commission, combined with testimony from investigator Mantsha Rapeshu 5 days earlier, builds a case that does not depend on Ramsamy’s evidence at all.
An arrest before the investigation was finished
Serunye told the commission the arrest of Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo and 6 others was premature. His argument was that they were brought to court before the investigation was complete, and before key evidence had even been gathered.
He set out exactly what was missing. Verification of Brigadier Dineo Mokwele’s qualifications, analysis of financial and communication records, and an assessment of how her appointment was actually made should all have come before the arrests. Instead, Serunye said, that work came after.
On the corruption charge itself, he went further. Bank statements, cellphone records, computer data, and any family or other relationship between the accused had not been gathered before the arrests were carried out. Without that work, he said, a corruption charge could not properly be sustained.
Serunye said the unanswered questions showed either that the preliminary investigation had not been properly conducted, or that there was no case at all. He told the commission this was not a new concern, pointing to correspondence he sent the Investigating Director in August 2025 stating the matter had been rushed to court when it was not ready.
The word Rapeshu used
Senior IDAC investigator Mantsha Rapeshu testified on Friday, 31 July. He travelled to Cape Town in January 2025 with prosecutor Ramsamy and chief investigator Dylan Perumal to consult with Fadiel Adams, the Member of Parliament whose complaint triggered the investigation.
Rapeshu said Adams gave them nothing beyond what was already in his sworn statement. Asked to characterise the consultation, he told the commission that in the normal way of speaking, he would call it fokol, adding that his only hesitation in saying so plainly was that Adams is a sitting Member of Parliament.
Put together with Serunye’s account, the two witnesses describe the same underlying problem from opposite ends of the case. The investigator says the complaint that started it all produced nothing new. The prosecutor says the verification work needed to justify the arrests was never done before they happened.
An affidavit that could not exist
Rapeshu told the commission only 4 supplementary statements were taken during the Cape Town consultation, all in his presence, and that he was with Adams the entire day. Later, while going through the docket, he found a 5th affidavit dated the same day, 6 January 2025, but commissioned at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria, not Cape Town.
Rapeshu said he could not have been present for that commissioning because he was in Cape Town the whole day. A commissioner on the panel asked whether this meant the real affidavits could have been swapped for different ones before the docket reached the accused. Rapeshu agreed, and said it went further than swapping, adding that some documents may have been concealed altogether.
Serunye separately described a near identical pattern from the prosecutor’s side. He said he spent months requesting the founding section 27 referral against Crime Intelligence, and that when chief investigator Perumal finally produced it, Perumal held onto the document himself. Serunye was permitted to read it but was not given a copy. He also noted the deponent appeared to have signed the document in Cape Town, while the commissioning stamp was from IDAC’s Pretoria office.
The O’Sullivan contradiction
Rapeshu also testified about a January 2025 meeting with forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, whom he was sent to establish contact with to determine whether O’Sullivan had opened his own case with police. O’Sullivan handed Rapeshu documents, including a letter from then police minister Senzo Mchunu to police commissioner Fannie Masemola.
Andrea Johnson had earlier told the commission she had no dealings with O’Sullivan on this matter. Evidence leaders subsequently produced emails showing Johnson was copied on correspondence with O’Sullivan from the same period, placing her sworn account against a documented paper trail that says otherwise.
What happened to Rapeshu next
Rapeshu said that after he raised concerns about the direction of the investigation, he was removed from the case, accused of leaking information, and placed under disciplinary process. He said he offered to undergo a polygraph test and hand over his phone records, and that the leak accusation was never proven.
He told the commission he believes Perumal was behind the accusation, and that he intends to open a criminal case of his own. He asked the commission to ensure any such case does not end up, in his words, in the wrong hands.
What it means
Without Ramsamy’s evidence, the commission already has a state prosecutor saying an arrest was premature and detailing exactly what evidence was missing, and a state investigator saying the complaint behind the case produced nothing. It has a 5th affidavit that could not have been created where it claims to have been created, and a head of IDAC whose sworn account of a key meeting does not match the documented emails.
If a Member of Parliament’s own complaint gave investigators fokol, the commission is left asking what actually justified arresting a Lieutenant General and 6 others.
