By Johnathan Paoli
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry continued its probe into alleged corruption, manipulation, and incompetence within the South African Police Service (SAPS) Forensic Division, hearing from a second ballistics expert whose testimony cast further doubt on the integrity of the reports compiled in the Armand Swart murder investigation.
Captain Medlon Mkhatshwa, a senior forensic analyst with the SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Pretoria, told the commission that several technical and procedural irregularities appeared in the reports authored by his colleague, Captain Itumeleng Makgotloe, particularly those linking firearms recovered from Swart’s alleged killers to the bullets extracted from the victim’s body.
“When we examined the reports, we noticed inconsistencies that are not aligned with standard police practice. A report should be corrected through a supplementary statement, not by replacing entire pages or backdating affidavits; that kind of process exposes you,” Mkhatshwa said.
Mkhatshwa, who holds two criminology degrees and has completed over 4,500 forensic investigations, explained that his duties in the KwaZulu-Natal Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) included attending crime scenes, reconstructing shooting incidents, and identifying firearms used in violent crimes.
He joined the commission’s proceedings to clarify the discrepancies surrounding the Swart murder case, a politically sensitive matter already marred by what evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson described as “error-riddled” documentation.
According to Mkhatshwa, the initial ballistic link between the AK-47 bullet recovered from Swart’s body and a rifle seized from his suspected killers was made by Makgotloe in an October 2024 report.
However, several errors were subsequently identified in that and later reports, ranging from incorrect case numbers to misidentified cartridge components and improper use of ballistic terminology.
Chaskalson walked the witness through multiple inconsistencies, highlighting instances where Makgotloe’s reports referred interchangeably to cartridges and cartridge cases, terms with distinct ballistic meanings.
In one section, Makgotloe claimed to have examined a 7.62 x 39 millimeter calibre cartridge case, yet later described analysing cartridges containing primers, bullets and propellant.
Asked to clarify, Mkhatshwa said the report should have referred to “a cartridge” rather than a “cartridge case”, confirming that the report contained multiple technical inaccuracies.
Further concerns arose when it became evident that Makgotloe had issued several corrected versions of his affidavit without indicating that earlier, flawed reports existed.
Chaskalson noted that this practice of replacing pages instead of issuing supplementary statements effectively concealed the existence of prior errors.
Mkhatshwa agreed, saying the first version of a forensic report would already have been submitted to the investigating officer and “would have come out anyway”, warning that backdating and replacement risked undermining transparency in the forensic process.
Adding to the complexity, Mkhatshwa told the commission that when he was later asked to conduct a comparative ballistic analysis in June this year, he used the test exhibits and laboratory records generated by Makgotloe.
Upon verifying the integrity of the exhibits and their seal numbers, he performed his own microscopy analysis and found that the firearms seized in the Swart murder were linked to five other criminal cases, including both murder and attempted murder dockets in Pretoria West and Lyttleton.
“The Russian-made AK-47 linked to the Swart killing was also used in a Lyttleton case. A pistol with an obliterated serial number matched evidence from several other cases, including Pretoria West. Another rifle using AK-47 ammunition was identified in one of the unknown cases, though that firearm was never recovered,” Mkhatshwa testified.
Mkhatshwa explained how analysts use comparison microscopy to determine whether bullets recovered from different crime scenes were fired from the same weapon.
He displayed several of the bullets associated with the Swart case before the commissioners, reaffirming that his analysis adhered to established standard operating procedures, unlike some of the methods reflected in Makgotloe’s work.
Beyond the forensic detail, Mkhatshwa’s testimony also touched on operational issues affecting the PKTT.
He confirmed that while the task team had not been formally dissolved, some of its members, including himself, had been sent home, a move that has disrupted case turnaround times.
“We no longer have everything in the palm of our hand,” he said, warning that this could impair the team’s effectiveness in addressing politically linked violence.
Tuesday’s session ended with Chaskalson announcing that tomorrow’s witnesses would testify about the arrest of businessman Katiso Molefe, who allegedly ordered the hit that killed Swart.
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