Madlanga Commission: Expert flags flaws in Swart murder probe

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