The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry has turned its attention to KwaZulu-Natal, and the evidence being presented is raising deeply troubling questions about the conduct of some police task teams. The commission has heard allegations of police hit squads targeting suspects linked to cash-in-transit robberies, drug syndicates and taxi violence — with claims that some suspects may have been deliberately killed rather than arrested and brought before the courts. IPID Deputy Director for Investigations Len John has told the commission that three KZN task teams, dealing with CIT
robberies, drugs and taxi violence, were particularly associated with these allegations. He says officers often failed to notify IPID promptly when suspects were killed in police shootings, and in
some cases could not even provide the identities of the deceased or evidence that they were responsible for the crimes they were allegedly being pursued for. The testimony raises a
fundamental question: were these genuine law-enforcement operations that went tragically wrong, or were some police officers effectively operating outside the law, deciding who should live and who should die?