Madlanga Commission, Day 151 – Drushantha Ramsamy testimony
IDAC prosecutor Drushantha Ramsamy testified at the Madlanga Commission on 30 July 2026 and played a recording of a 22 July phone call in which former IDAC head Andrea Johnson allegedly told her to leave the country if she was called to testify. Ramsamy also testified that the section 27 affidavit shown to the commission is not the document she used in December 2024 to build the case against Crime Intelligence, and that Johnson could not account for names in her own investigation. The commission has ordered that Johnson be served with a Rule 3 notice to respond, and Ramsamy’s evidence continues on 4 August 2026.
The recording
On 22 July 2026, while Andrea Johnson was still giving evidence at the Madlanga Commission, she called IDAC prosecutor Drushantha Ramsamy. Ramsamy recorded the call and told the commission why. She said Johnson had already implicated her in testimony, so she no longer trusted her.
On the recording, Johnson can be heard telling Ramsamy that if the commission calls her to testify, she should leave the country. Later on the same call, Johnson said the commission is going to make their names filthy anyway, and that it is going to be a shit show.
Ramsamy testified that Johnson had not been honest with the commission, and that Johnson misrepresented her role in the case against Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo.
Where the names came from
On the same call, Johnson repeatedly asked Ramsamy where the names in her own investigation had come from. The section 28(13) authorisation that followed Fadiel Adams’s original referral added 8 more names to the case. Of those, Johnson said she only recognised 3, Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo, Major General Nozipho Madondo and Brigadier Lushaba.
Ramsamy told her. She testified that Johnson had handed her the extra names on a handwritten note, on a pink or purple page, on 5 December 2024, the same day Johnson gave her the underlying complaint. Ramsamy said Johnson told her at the time that the names came from IDAC investigator Dylan Perumal’s own conversation with Adams, a conversation that took place before Johnson had even formally received the complaint that was meant to start the investigation. Johnson did not dispute this on the call.
A different founding document
Ramsamy went further. She testified that the document she used in December 2024 to prepare the section 28(13) application is not the section 27 affidavit that was shown to the commission.
The version Ramsamy says she worked from included allegations involving the Political Killings Task Team, former police minister Bheki Cele, and secret service funds allegedly used to buy vehicles, properties and a hotel building. None of that appears in the version put before the commission. IDAC investigator Mantsha Rapeshu backed up Ramsamy’s account of the original document.
Ramsamy went on to say she suspects the version shown to the commission did not exist yet when the accused were requesting it in late 2025, and that it was likely only created after a July 2025 press briefing at which a senior police officer confirmed publicly that IDAC was investigating the Political Killings Task Team. Take note, this is Ramsamy’s stated suspicion and not a proven fact, and she was careful to frame it that way in her own testimony.
“An orchestrated attack”
Ramsamy also testified that Johnson and Perumal launched what she called an orchestrated attack on national police commissioner Fannie Masemola and Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo, using IDAC’s own investigative powers to do it. She said this would become evident in her statement and further testimony.
What happens next
None of Ramsamy’s evidence has been tested by Johnson’s response. Commission chairperson Mbuyiseli Madlanga has ordered that a Rule 3 notice be served on Johnson so she can formally answer what Ramsamy has now put on record under oath. Ramsamy’s own evidence is not finished. Her second statement, covering events after 6 January 2025, is still being finalised, and her testimony continues on Tuesday, 4 August 2026.
