Evidence suggests elite military unit killed officer probing alleged kidnapping, BBC told

In a case that has sent shockwaves through one of Africa's most established democracies and raised profound questions about military overreach, seven members of South Africa's special forces, alongside one military police officer, have been charged with the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Frans Mathipa, a highly respected detective with the elite Hawks unit, who was shot dead while driving in August 2023 after expressing fears that his pursuit of a sensitive investigation would cost him his life. The charges, which all eight men deny, stem from evidence contained in several hundred pages of secret police and court documents shared with the BBC, which set out a compelling prosecution case suggesting that special forces operatives tracked and killed Mathipa in retaliation for his investigation into the alleged abduction and murder of an Ethiopian man named Abdella Abadigga, a purported Islamic State militant who had been used as an intelligence asset by the military. The case has provoked consternation regarding the conduct of the country's armed forces, with concerns that they have significantly overstepped their mandate, and there are mounting fears that the trial may never proceed, given that three of the accused have refused to comply with a court order revoking their bail and continue to serve in the army's special forces, with one having received a promotion since the charges were laid.

The investigation that would ultimately lead to Mathipa's death began with the disappearance of Abadigga, an Ethiopian national who had been granted temporary asylum in South Africa in 2008 but was arrested abroad in 2017 and subsequently smuggled back into the country by the South African military and the Department of Home Affairs, allegedly to be used as an intelligence asset, only to "go rogue" and begin extorting members of Johannesburg's Ethiopian community, with funds purportedly used to finance Islamic State, according to the US government. Mathipa was assigned to investigate the case four months before his own death, building on evidence already gathered by Abadigga's brother, Ameen, who had opened a missing person's case and obtained CCTV footage from the Mall of Africa, a shopping centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg, which showed the last known movements of Abadigga and his bodyguard, Kadir Abotese. The footage, clips of which have been seen by the BBC, depicts a man in a blue top following the pair as they left the food court and headed towards the car park, with the suspect paying for parking a mere three seconds after Abadigga and Abotese, and the licence plates of the vehicles involved in the suspected kidnapping were clearly visible and later traced to a company called Peters Communications Trust (PCT), which police documents identify as a front company for South African special forces, with its directors at the time including Major General Herbert Mashego, the then commanding officer of 5 Special Forces Regiment.

When the investigating officer from local police, who had been handling the missing person's case, arranged a meeting with high-ranking military officials, including Brigadier General Yalo, then head of special forces, he was instructed to inform Ameen Abadigga that there was no connection between PCT and the military, a claim that the documents suggest was false, leading Ameen to take his case to the Johannesburg High Court, where special forces responded by denying all knowledge of Abadigga's whereabouts but admitted their soldiers had been at the mall on the date in question, claiming they were conducting a training exercise. They identified the man in the blue top as Major Sunnybooi Wambi, describing him as the exercise commander, and conceded that all the suspect vehicles belonged to them, though it remains unclear whether the required authorisation for domestic military operations from the government and the presidency was ever obtained, with former Defence Minister Thandi Modise not responding to inquiries and President Cyril Ramaphosa declining to comment on the matter. Mathipa, having been assigned to the case shortly after this court exchange, issued a subpoena to special forces demanding full details of the alleged training exercise and all personnel involved, and after three months of waiting, when access to these documents was finally promised, he confided in his commanding officer, Brigadier Paulina Sekgobela, that he believed his pursuit of the truth would lead to his murder.

His foreboding proved tragically accurate when, on the day of his death, he received a phone call at his home from a man calling himself Tebogo, who claimed to possess information relevant to the case, and arranged to meet the detective at a petrol station in Pretoria, according to Mathipa's daughter Basetsana, who was with him at the time; when Tebogo failed to appear, Mathipa drove away along the highway, where he was killed by rounds fired from high-velocity weapons consistent with those used by special forces, with footage from motorway toll gantries showing that one of the occupants of a black BMW that tailed his vehicle moments before the shooting was Major Sunnybooi Wambi, and this car, like the three vehicles linked to Abadigga's disappearance, was registered to PCT. Following Mathipa's death, special forces issued a chilling warning to The Hawks, which made its way to the police's Criminal Intelligence division, stating that however many investigating officers were assigned to the case, "we will kill all of them," a threat that underscores the alleged determination of military personnel to obstruct justice, even as twelve members of the South African military have been arrested in total, including Lieutenant Colonel Wambi and the current head of special forces, Brigadier General Solomon Lechoenyo, both of whom were promoted to their current positions after police had already begun investigating their roles in the matter.

The twelve accused face a raft of charges, including the abduction and murder of Abadigga and his bodyguard, the murder of Mathipa, fraud, and obstruction of justice, all of which they deny, and while they were initially released on bail, six had their bail revoked and were ordered to surrender to custody, but the military has refused to hand over three of them, including Wambi, with their lawyers citing mental health treatment for their absence in July, three years after the killing, and no trial date has yet been scheduled. The case has exposed a web of alleged misconduct that extends beyond the murder of a police officer, with court documents showing that after Abadigga's abduction, his phone connected to a mast near a military base and was used to call a number in Somalia, raising questions about whether the information gleaned from that call assisted the Pentagon in locating Bilal al-Sudani, a top Islamic State figure in Somalia who was killed by US special forces in January 2023, a question the Pentagon did not answer, while President Ramaphosa declined to comment on whether Abadigga had been kidnapped at the behest of the United States. The body of Abdella Abadigga has never been found, and Mathipa's daughter Basetsana, reflecting on her father's dedication and the personal cost of his commitment to the rule of law, expressed a stark demand for justice, questioning why her father, who was simply performing his duties, had to pay the ultimate price, while his former colleague, Colonel Tollie Vreugdenburg, observed that Mathipa had been "barking up the right tree" and "taking on the right lion," a poignant epitaph for a detective who pursued a dangerous truth to its fatal conclusion.