Des Erasmus
SAPS national spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said on Sunday that Wiandre Pretorius, implicated at the Madlanga Commission in the extrajudicial killing of Emmanuel Mbense, was a person of interest in the murder of Marius van der Merwe, who testified as Witness D about Mbense’s death at the commission last year.
Pretorius — it remains unclear if he was an active police officer, former police officer, or reservist — killed himself at a filling station in Brakpan, east of Johannesburg, on Saturday night.
“He was actually the first person of interest that we took in for questioning [after Van der Merwe was killed]. We had seized his firearms as well as cell phones, which are still in police custody, for further investigation. That particular investigation is still ongoing, and it is at an advanced stage,” Mathe said.
Pretorius’s suicide came after he survived a botched hit on Thursday outside his home in Van Dyk Park, Boksburg.
Mathe said police were also investigating the botched hit.
“He reported there was a hit on his life,” she said.
An inquest docket had been opened into Pretorius’s suicide, she said.
Mathe said that Pretorius’s partner, police sergeant Juan-Mare Eksteen, was present when he died.
“From what we have gathered, his wife was on the scene. We are told that there was an argument between him and his wife before he pulled the trigger on himself. We are still investigating what they could have been arguing about.”
Van der Merwe, the owner of a private security company and a former Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD) officer, was assassinated in December just weeks after testifying, outside his home in Brakpan. Police said he sustained multiple gunshot wounds from an automatic rifle.
At the Madlanga Commission, he testified that rogue EMPD officers, police — including Eksteen — and Pretorius, had interrogated criminal suspect Mbense in 2022.
It was Pretorius, he testified, who he saw “tubing” the suspect.
Van der Merwe said that he left the house where the interrogation was taking place while Pretorius was still with Mbense. Later, when he saw Pretorius outside the home and asked if Mbense was “talking” — offering information — Pretorius said that he would “never talk again”.
Van der Merwe said he was tasked with disposing of Mbense’s corpse.
According to Van der Merwe’s testimony, the disposal of the body took place with the knowledge of then-EMPD deputy chief Julius Mkhwanazi, who arrived at the scene after being called by officers to “clean up the mess” and, after speaking to Pretorius, decided that Van der Merwe should dispose of the body.
Mkhwanazi was suspended last year after being implicated in the testimony of other witnesses at the commission, before Van der Merwe’s testimony.
In January, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his response to the commission’s interim report that Mkhwanazi, along with other former and current Ekurhuleni Metro employees, had been found to have a prima facie case to answer for wrongdoing.
A task team had been established to investigate all referrals, according to the president.
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