Judge’s report reopens questions over Cato Manor ‘death squad’ investigations

A presidential inquiry has concluded there was evidence to prosecute members of the Cato Manor organised crime unit, reversing the National Prosecuting Authority’s long-held position and clearing Advocate Andrew Chauke of misconduct. The inquiry’s report, signed on June 30 and released by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office, says 23 murder dockets linked to the unit merited prosecution and criticised how the matter was handled by prosecutors.

How the inquiry reached its findings

The inquiry was chaired by retired Constitutional Court justice Bess Nkabinde. It examined a prosecution brought in 2012 that consolidated 23 dockets into a racketeering case accusing members of the Cato Manor unit of operating together as a criminal enterprise. The dockets originated from killings between 2008 and 2011 that the unit has been blamed for, with the report saying the unit was blamed for about 28 people being shot dead in that period.

The case had been assembled by a prosecution team appointed when Andrew Chauke was head of prosecutions in Johannesburg. The charges were later set aside on review and never reinstated. For more than a decade, the NPA maintained there was insufficient evidence to support the charges, a position that led to Chauke’s suspension and an inquiry into his fitness for office.

Ballistics and witness material

The inquiry heard evidence from ballistics expert Christiaan Mangena, who built 23 crime-scene reconstructions. The report says Mangena found that in the killing of 16-year-old Kwazi Ndlovu on April 1, 2010, four shots were fired from a 5.56mm rifle and three struck the teenager as he lay on a sofa. Mangena’s analysis concluded the bullet trajectories and bloodstain patterns showed Kwazi had not been moving when shot, and that the firearm found next to him could not be reconciled with his wounds or the direction of fire.

In her statement recorded in the docket, Kwazi’s mother, Lindiwe Desiree Ndlovu, said police kept her outside the lounge and that when she later looked through a window she saw her son on the couch with a bullet wound and a firearm placed next to him. The report says Mangena’s ballistics findings were unchallenged and that they “simply disproved the police version.”

Other contested killings and recommendations

The inquiry also considered the killing of Bongani Mkhize, shot dead in his vehicle on February 3, 2009. Members of the unit had said Mkhize fired first; Mangena found every shot had been fired from outside the car and that the pistol recovered inside belonged to one of the men at the scene.

The killing of Thabo Sunshine Msimango on May 24, 2008 was also examined. The report records that an Independent Complaints Directorate investigator, Sharmilla Williams, concluded the killing was not justified, recommended charges and had that recommendation signed off by her supervisor. The KwaZulu-Natal director of public prosecutions declined to prosecute.

Accountability, evidence and unanswered questions

The inquiry found that the prosecuting memoranda setting out the evidence against the Cato Manor unit should have been included in papers presented to the president but were not. It also found there was no credible evidence that Chauke took the prosecutorial decisions of which he was accused, and recommended he was fit to continue in office as Director of Public Prosecutions.

Former national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi had referred the matter to President Ramaphosa and alleged there was no evidence to support the charges; the inquiry found those accusations were unsubstantiated in part because Batohi left while still under cross-examination and did not return to finish her evidence. The report records Batohi gave evidence from November 19 to December 15 and that applications she later made were dismissed by the panel.

The inquiry noted that Major-General Johan Booysen, the unit’s former head and a central figure in the matter, did not give evidence. The report records correspondence from his attorneys expressing concern he had not been informed he might be incriminated and saying he had been prejudiced. Booysen undertook to file a witness statement and later withdrew it.

Ramaphosa accepts inquiry findings

President Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said the president accepted the panel’s findings that there was no credible evidence to conclude Chauke had taken the prosecutorial decisions alleged in relation to the Cato Manor matter and that he had not acted unlawfully in his coordination functions.

Unprosecuted dockets and delayed justice

Nkabinde’s report highlighted that many of the Cato Manor dockets remain unprosecuted and said the delay exposed by the inquiry “without doubt translates to a denial of justice.” The panel stated that its findings were not a determination of guilt, and that the forensic findings should stand unless and until tested in court.

The report and its findings have reignited public scrutiny of the Cato Manor prosecutions and the handling of evidence and prosecutions by state authorities.