By Johnathan Paoli
Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD) head of Media and Public Relations Unit, Lieutenant Colonel Kelebogile Thepa, delivered some of the commission’s most chilling testimony on Friday as she detailed the violent attack she believes was linked to her role in responding to media inquiries about the now-infamous “blue lights” scandal implicating suspended EMPD Brigadier Julius Mkhwanazi.
Visibly emotional, Thepa told the commission that three armed men confronted her in July 2023 while she was returning from visiting her late mother’s gravesite.
The men, she said, demanded her phone, uttered work-related threats, and made it clear she was being targeted because of her involvement in handling media questions about the scandal.
“He cocked a firearm and pointed it at me. What hurt me the most were the things that were said… all of it was work-related. They said I was a problem at work,” she recalled.
The attackers
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