BREAKING NEWS : Witness A – Businessman Katiso Molefe – was going to pay R2.5 million to secure bail.
Unidentified organised crime investigator Witness A has claimed that “informers” told him and the other officers investigating the murder of engineer Armand Swart that the alleged mastermind behind his killing – businessman Katiso Molefe – was going to pay R2.5 million to secure bail.
“What I just wanted to highlight here is that at the back of our mind when we went to the courtroom, we already knew that this is what has been said to us,” Witness A told the Madlanga Commission on Tuesday.
“We also raised it with our commanders to say this is the information that we received as a team to say this man is going to get bail, and then this is how much he paid for his bail.”
Witness A did not produce any evidence to back up his claim, but said Witness B, his fellow Swart murder investigator, would elaborate on this allegation when she testifies on Wednesday.
Witness A had told the commission that he and his fellow investigators were initially unsure whether the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) or the judiciary were implicated in the alleged corruption reported by unnamed “informers”. However, he reserved his strongest criticism for Acting Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba of the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, who granted bail to Molefe, a businessman accused of murder.
According to Witness A, Ledwaba had granted Molefe R100 000 bail an hour after hearing his counsel and the NPA’s arguments for why he should be released.
The businessman, who was charged with the Schedule 6 offence of premeditated murder in relation to the 17 April 2024 hit on Swart, had already been refused bail in the Vereeniging Magistrate’s Court and had appealed against this decision in the High Court.
