‘Idac investigators forced me to lie about Bheki Cele,’ Matlala says

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Alleged criminal kingpin Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala told the Madlanga Commission that Idac investigators coerced him to fabricate evidence targeting former ...

Alleged criminal kingpin Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala told the Madlanga Commission that the Independent Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) coerced him to give false evidence in his plea deal witness statement, targeting former police minister Bheki Cele.

Matlala said he had been forced to state he knew Cele for a long time before they met on 23 December 2024, when Matlala was seeking assistance after a police raid at his house.

He said the investigators wanted to create the impression that Cele was closely linked to taxi boss Jotham “King Mswazi” Msibi.

“Yes, I saw Cele once at Mr Msibi’s funeral. The guys from Idac said: ‘No this won't be sufficient. You need to create a history as you used to see him with Mr Msibi before, that's why you were so comfortable going to him, even though you never spoke, so there must be a history.’ That's why they ended up putting this paragraph here,” Matlala said, referring to his witness statement.

He denied the contents of Paragraph 86 in which he incriminated Cele in organised crime.

Paragraph 86 of Matlala's 204 witness statement says: “I had known of Cele previously as he used to visit the late Msibi from time to time. I used to see him at Msibi’s place but never interacted with him or spoke to him due to my purpose there being providing security to the late Msibi. I do remember that Msibi would tell me that he was giving Cele lots of money. How much he gave him is unknown to me.”

Matlala said Idac investigators had inserted it because they wanted to taint Cele and have him arrested.

He said he was not closely acquainted with the former police minister but had met Cele once at the Beverly Hills hotel between 23 and 26 December 2024.

He said he told Cele about his troubles with the Political Killings Task Team that had raided his house the week before.

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