By Johnathan Paoli
A suspended police sergeant told Parliament’s ad hoc committee on Friday that KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi was present when he and a co-accused were allegedly tortured during an investigation into the 2024 kidnapping of businessman Zakariyya Desai.
Samkeliso Honest Mlotshwa, of the Border Policing Unit, who was stationed at the Lebombo border post, said he had never met Desai and denied any involvement in the kidnapping.
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“I don’t know Mr Zakariyya Desai. What I know is that he is a businessman from Stanger who was kidnapped on 10 September 2024. My involvement in this matter, I was alleged to be one of the suspects who kidnapped Mr Zakariyya Desai,” he said.
Mlotshwa said he was arrested on 23 November 2024 in Maputo, Mozambique, while on a business trip repatriating the remains of a funeral parlour client.
He said he was detained by Brigadier Nilton Mendes, director of the Trilateral Planning Cell, a transnational organised crime unit between South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania, and interrogated in a remote area before being handed over to a KwaZulu-Natal Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) tracking team.
“They took me to the bush where they questioned me about the kidnapping. They assaulted me after seeing that I don’t have anything to do with the kidnapping. They then took my passport, everything that I had,” he said.
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After several days in detention in Mozambique, he said he was transported back to South Africa and taken overnight to KwaDukuza (Stanger area) police station, where he was detained on charges of kidnapping, attempted murder and extortion.
Mlotshwa testified that he was later removed from police cells and taken to a farm where he and his co-accused were allegedly tortured.
He told the committee that Mkhwanazi was present when the alleged assaults took place.
“I was told by the provincial commissioner to undress until I was naked. I was instructed to squat before my co-accused… During the torture, the provincial commissioner was present and participated in the torture,” he said.
He further alleged that officers suffocated him using a plastic bag filled with water while interrogating him about the kidnapping.
“The provincial commissioner asked about who my legal representative was and which union I belong to. I replied that I was a member of SAPU and he remarked that he will make sure they never represent me,” he said.
Mlotshwa said Mkhwanazi remained at the location for about half an hour, and that the alleged torture proceeded “for hours” after he left.
By January 2025, charges against Mlotshwa and his co-accused, alleged kidnapping kingpin and Mozambican nationals Esmael Nangy and Stefane da Costa Brites, had been withdrawn. Desai was released by his captors in February 2025.
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Mlotshwa also disputed public comments previously made by Mkhwanazi regarding the burning of his home in Mpumalanga.
In an interview with eNCA, the provincial commissioner suggested the house had been destroyed by community members after it was linked to criminal activity.
Mlotshwa rejected that account.
“What the provincial commissioner of KZN said is totally untrue, he is saying that the house was burned before they could get all the evidence they wanted and that it was burned by the community. That is not true,” he said.
He said that police officers were already present at the property earlier that day, making the explanation implausible.
“If he said the house was burned before they came, the question would be who would then break into the house, because his police officers were there during the day. They were not gathering evidence. They were destroying evidence,” Mlotshwa said.
Mkhwanazi, along with National Commissioner General Fannie Masemola are expected back before the committee next week.
