Lebeya agrees his own WhatsApp makes him look complicit in Molefe arrest disruption
AT A GLANCE: Former Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya concluded his evidence at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on 2 September 2026, his last day in the witness chair. Under questioning from evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube and later from chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, Lebeya conceded that a WhatsApp message thanking him for his “efforts” on the day Hawks members disrupted the arrest of murder accused Katiso Molefe creates the impression that he was working with the men who sent it. He could not explain why he never asked who had thanked him, and admitted he never checked a car registration number that would have confirmed within seconds that the men at the scene were legitimate police.
Lebeya, who led the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation from 2018 until his retirement in 2025, had already spent 1 September 2026 answering questions about 541kg of cocaine that went missing from a Hawks office in Port Shepstone. On 2 September the commission turned to events of 6 December 2024, when Hawks members were sent to a house in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, where Molefe, accused of masterminding the murder of engineer Armand Swart, was being arrested by a SAPS counter-intelligence team.
Lebeya has maintained throughout his evidence that he sent the members because a man he refers to as an informant, publicly known as Malcolm X, told him people were impersonating the Hawks at the address. The commission spent the day testing that account against Lebeya’s own phone records and WhatsApp messages, which were entered as an exhibit.
A relationship neither man will confirm
The day opened on a dispute over terminology. Segeels-Ncube put it to Lebeya that he had described Malcolm X as a police informant, including in a media interview. Malcolm X went to the same radio station the following week and disputed that characterisation. Commissioner Sandile Khumalo pressed Lebeya on the point, and Lebeya eventually said, “I can agree that is the case, but I would not have loved to identify him with that in the commission.”
Lebeya confirmed that Malcolm X was arrested by his own DPCI officers on 23 October 2023, on charges of extortion and corruption involving police officials. He said he learned of the arrest immediately, because the Hawks share such information on an internal WhatsApp group. Malcolm X has not been convicted and is presumed innocent, but Lebeya accepted under questioning that he knew of the suspicion against Malcolm X when the call came in more than a year later.
What the phone records show
According to Lebeya’s own statement and the WhatsApp exhibit, Malcolm X first called him at 15:43 on 6 December 2024, while Lebeya was attending an excellence awards ceremony. In a 2 minute call, Malcolm X told him there were people at a Sandton address claiming to be Hawks members sent by Lebeya, driving unmarked cars with no number plates, some wearing balaclavas. Lebeya said he did not ask whether Malcolm X was describing what he was seeing himself or repeating what someone else had told him.
At around 16:00, after Lebeya had already asked his generals to verify whether any Hawks members were operating in the area, Malcolm X sent him the car registration number of the vehicles at the scene. The commission put it to Lebeya that this alone was sufficient. A warrant officer who was later dispatched to the address testified on 3 November 2025 that he ran the same registration through an app on his state phone and it returned immediately as a police vehicle. Lebeya agreed that this would have been enough to verify who was there, telling the commission, “I agree with that, commissioner.” He maintained that his officers still needed to confirm in person whether the men were falsely claiming to be Hawks members. One commissioner responded that there was no need to send 14 Hawks officers to the address for that purpose.
Malcolm X separately told Lebeya that the men were wearing SAPS bulletproof vests. A commissioner put it to him that this, too, should have indicated the men were likely genuine police, and that his job at that point was simply to establish whether they were. Lebeya said his experience was that individuals impersonating police had previously been found wearing genuine SAPS vests, and that this was not conclusive.
At 15:53, Malcolm X sent Lebeya the name of the homeowner, Katiso Molefe. Lebeya forwarded the address to Lieutenant General Patrick Mbotho and Gauteng Hawks head Major General Ebrahim Kadwa, but did not forward Molefe’s name. When Mbotho asked him for a contact number for someone at the scene, Lebeya did not respond. Asked why, he said it was because his source was an informant.
A second line into the Hawks
Segeels-Ncube put a further account to Lebeya. A warrant officer testified that on arrival at the scene, a man identifying himself as a relative of the homeowner told him, “I am the one that called Patrick,” referring to General Mbotho. Separately, Captain Maxwell Wanda testified that a man at the scene handed him a phone during the operation, on which a Hawks brigadier was waiting to speak to him. Both officers identified that man as Mr Mthethwa, the same person referred to in Malcolm X’s later message as “King Nyambose.”
Lebeya said he had no knowledge of this. Segeels-Ncube put it to him that, on this evidence, the same man was working two separate channels into the Hawks that afternoon, one through Malcolm X to the national head, and one directly to a lieutenant general.
The message at 17:48
The commission displayed a photograph recovered from one of Molefe’s own devices, dated by its metadata to 21 June 2022, showing five men including Molefe, Mthethwa, and the late taxi figure Jotham Msibi. Segeels-Ncube said the man beside Msibi was Mthethwa, whose clan name Lebeya agreed is Nyambose.
At 17:48 that evening, Malcolm X sent Lebeya a message: “Thank you for sending people who verified that these gentlemen are policemen, and King Nyambose really appreciates all your efforts, General. It is a pity that the policemen you sent were not allowed inside the yard and house.” Segeels-Ncube noted the message referred to policemen, not Hawks members. Asked what his response was, Lebeya said he was occupied with other matters that day and was not particularly interested in the message.
At 18:40, General Kadwa messaged Lebeya confirming that two arrest warrants had been executed at the address, meaning Molefe had by then been formally arrested. At 21:52, more than three hours after the thank you message, Malcolm X called Lebeya again for a 3 minute conversation, the longest of the day between them. Lebeya could not recall what was discussed. Segeels-Ncube said she would accept that he was not going to give the commission a satisfactory answer.
“I agree, chair”
Late in the day, Justice Madlanga took over the questioning directly. He put it to Lebeya that, at face value, the 17:48 message creates the impression that Lebeya and Malcolm X were working together on behalf of Mthethwa, who was thanking him accordingly. Lebeya replied, “I agree, chair.”
Madlanga then asked whether Lebeya had read the message and understood it. Lebeya confirmed he had. Madlanga said that if Lebeya understood the message and the impression it created, and never once objected to that impression, either in a reply to Malcolm X or in the 3 minute call that followed, he could not now explain that away with hindsight. “I will not let you off that easily, General,” Madlanga said. Lebeya’s final answer was that at the time, it did not occur to him to ask who Nyambose was. Madlanga told him the explanation was not cogent, and that the question of why remained unanswered.
Earlier in the exchange, Madlanga referred to Malcolm X as someone known to be a criminal. Lebeya objected that no court had made such a finding. Madlanga apologised on the record and corrected himself to “suspect.” Lebeya then confirmed he had known of the suspicion of criminal activity against Malcolm X throughout.
“Your source misled you”
Commissioner Sesi Baloyi told Lebeya that his source had in fact misled him, and that once Molefe’s arrest and the seriousness of the allegations against him became public, it was, in her words, “incomprehensible” that the head of the Hawks would not call Malcolm X in and ask him directly what he had been involved in. She said she despaired that Lebeya, with all the facts available to him, did not think there was something requiring further scrutiny.
Baloyi added that this was not the first time in two days of testimony that Lebeya’s suspicion had failed to be roused by facts placed in front of him, referring to the previous day’s evidence on the missing Port Shepstone cocaine, where two written reports reached his desk without producing a disciplinary process.
Six names, one admission
Shown a second, clearer photograph of the same five men, Lebeya said he did not know or recognise any of them: Msibi, Mthethwa, Ignatius Mothakathi, Steve Motsumi, Ze Nxumalo, or Molefe himself. Segeels-Ncube noted that other generals who testified before the commission, including in KwaZulu-Natal, had been reluctant to say some of these names aloud in public, while Lebeya, responsible nationally for organised crime, said he did not know of any of them.
Asked whether it amounted to a failure by the Hawks that this group had never featured on the organisation’s radar, Lebeya said, “I accept that,” adding that the individual who held the relevant information had personally failed the organisation, a reference to General Senona’s evidence the previous day.
Closing statement
Given five minutes to address the commission directly, Lebeya said the period since 6 July 2025 had not been easy, with a cloud hanging over his name, and that no witness had suggested he received any payment or gratification. “I am incorruptible. I have conducted clean policing for over 40 years. I have not even pointed a weapon in the direction of anybody,” he said. He listed a career that included being dismissed, reinstated, dismissed again, denied reinstatement, reinstated again, discharged, and reappointed, and said he was the first national head of the Hawks to complete a full term. He also addressed two protected witnesses who testified earlier in the commission, telling them they were not alone in having suffered professionally for doing their work.
Lebeya has now concluded his evidence and was excused by the commission. None of the allegations addressed during his testimony have been tested in court or found proven, and everyone named is presumed innocent. The commission adjourned for recess and resumes public hearings on 14 September 2026. Public evidence closes on 2 October, and the commission’s report is due to the President on 16 November.
Update: Feroz Khan dismissed
The SAPS confirmed this week that Major General Feroz Khan of Crime Intelligence has been dismissed from the service. According to the SAPS statement, Khan was “deemed dismissed” under Regulation 9(7)(b) of the SAPS Discipline Regulations, after failing to appear before the senior officer designated to handle his disciplinary process. The regulation ends a member’s employment where the member does not attend the process; it is not a finding on the underlying allegations against him.
Khan was due to testify at the Madlanga Commission before he was shot. None of the allegations against him, including those relating to his own alleged conduct and his role as a witness in IDAC cases, have been tested at the commission. The SAPS said it will continue to abide by the decisions of the courts and will provide further information where legally permissible.
