South African Special Forces Charged in Detective’s Murder

Pretoria (GNP): Seven members of South Africa’s special forces, along with one military police officer, have been charged with the murder of senior police detective Lieutenant Colonel Frans Mathipa, who was shot dead while driving on a motorway outside Pretoria in August 2023. All eight men have denied the charges, and no trial date has yet been scheduled amid concerns the case may never proceed to court.

Mathipa, a respected officer who worked for South Africa’s elite police unit known as The Hawks, had spent four months investigating a sensitive case before his death. He had reportedly told his commanding officer, Brigadier Paulina Sekgobela, that he believed the individuals he was investigating intended to kill him, a premonition that came roughly three months before he was shot while driving home.

According to secret police and court documents, the case Mathipa had been investigating centred on Abdella Abadigga, an Ethiopian national who had been granted temporary asylum in South Africa in 2008 before being arrested abroad in 2017.

Documents indicate Abadigga was later returned to South Africa to serve as an intelligence asset but was subsequently accused of extorting members of Johannesburg’s Ethiopian community, with funds allegedly used to support a militant organisation. Mathipa had been investigating allegations that special forces personnel abducted and killed Abadigga in December 2022.

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Court documents cited in the case indicate that closed-circuit television footage from a Johannesburg shopping centre showed Abadigga and his bodyguard being followed on the day they were last seen, with vehicles connected to the incident registered to a company later identified as a front for South African special forces.

One individual captured on the footage was subsequently identified as a special forces major. When Abadigga’s brother pursued the matter through the Johannesburg High Court, special forces representatives acknowledged their personnel had been present at the location but stated they had been conducting a training exercise.

According to the BBC, Documents show that when Mathipa was assigned to the case, he issued a subpoena requiring special forces to provide full details of the exercise and the personnel involved. Investigators say the vehicle that trailed Mathipa shortly before he was shot was registered to the same front company linked to the earlier incident, and that toll gantry footage placed one of the same special forces officers in the vehicle at the time.

Following Mathipa’s death, police documents indicate that a warning was relayed to The Hawks stating that any investigators assigned to the case would face the same fate, regardless of how many were appointed. In total, twelve members of the South African military have since been arrested in connection with the case, facing a combination of charges including abduction, murder, fraud and obstruction.

All have denied the charges and were initially granted bail; six later had that bail revoked and were ordered into custody, though the military has not handed them over. Legal representatives for three of the men cited ongoing mental health treatment as the reason for their continued absence as of July.

Three years after Mathipa’s death, no trial date has been set, and Abadigga’s body has never been recovered. Mathipa’s daughter has publicly called for justice, saying her father was targeted for carrying out his professional duties.