She said had she been approached for comment before the directive was issued, she would have motivated against the disbandment.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Advocate Elaine Harrison, told the Madlanga commission on Friday that she learned about the disbandment of the political killings task team (PKTT) on social media.
Harrison, who was on leave when Police Minister Senzo Mchunu issued the directive, said at the time, she thought what was circulating on social media was fake news.
“After returning to the office in January 2025, I was informed by Advocate [Lawrence] Gcaba, the prosecutor who responded to the task team matters, that the social media reports may be true because the team had been informed by General [Dumisani] Khumalo only to continue with matters that had been enrolled or waiting for a decision. At no stage was formal communication addressed to my office notifying us of the disestablishment of the task team,” said Harrison.
Mkhwanazi’s letter
KZN police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi testified last week that he only sent a letter to Harrison’s office in May 2025, apologising that his team would no longer be able to execute warrants of arrest as the 121 case dockets had been moved to the South African Police Service (Saps) head office in Pretoria.
Harrison confirmed receiving the letter, but said it only caused even more frustration for her team as Mkhwanazi did not address the disbandment of the task team in his letter.
“General Mkhwanazi did not address the disestablishment either; he only referred to the removal of the dockets. An enormous amount of work had taken place to ensure the necessary coordination by providing a dedicated prosecutorial team to address all the challenges that had historically been raised in responding to the work of the task team,” said Harrison.
ALSO READ: Madlanga commission: Mchunu told Masemola political killings ended before 1994
“News of the disbanding emerged at a time when all the work that had been put in was clearly bearing fruit, and the coordination was producing the desired results.
“There was a bit of frustration at this time because there had been a lot of work that had gone into this from the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority ] side in the province towards the work of the task team, and because the information we had about the disbandment came from social media, not General Mkhwanazi. He said nothing about it in his letter.”
Impact of task team disbandment directive
Following the letter to disband from Mchunu, Mkhwanazi said last week that some detectives were removed from the task team and returned to their stations.
Harrison said this move affected the work of the task team, as some functions had been removed along with the detectives.
ALSO READ: Masemola says Mchunu’s anger over ‘police doing a good job’ was ‘quite strange’
“The PKTT no longer had all the functions that were there before the disbandment letter. Some of them had been removed, so matters would take a little bit longer.
“There were also matters for which only arrest warrants were missing. What was left here was simply for the police to execute the warrants; that was all that was outstanding.
“We had to wait until the dockets came back for the warrants to be executed. After the return of the dockets from Pretoria, a warrant was executed in one of the PKTT matters and was enrolled.”
As things stand, Harrison still does not know the status of the PKTT. However, “we continue to operate under the premise that there is no disbandment of the task team”.
The team is no longer as effective as they are still catching up on the time lost when the dockets were taken to Pretoria.
ALSO READ: Masemola says Mchunu’s anger over ‘police doing a good job’ was ‘quite strange’
“We’ve lost about three months of investigations being conducted, when we did not have access to the dockets. We cannot be held responsible for this delay, as we are not responsible for the removal of these dockets. During the three to four months, there was no communication from Saps’ head office to the KZN DPP regarding the dockets,” she said.
Mchunu and pre-1994 political killings
During his testimony on Tuesday, National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola said Mchunu had never presented any evidence to support his claim that the task team was no longer needed.
“He [Mchunu] never produced or presented anything that would counter [the argument that the PKTT was a success]. And even what informed him to come to the decision, he wouldn’t produce that. He said that after 1994, it’s just murders that are happening, not political killings. There was no document that he produced or any presentation whatsoever,” Masemola said.
Harrison said she did not agree with Mchunu’s view that the PKTT was no longer required. She disagreed with the minister’s assertions that political killings ended in 1994.
“I would say that is incorrect. There were political killings in 2019,” said Harrison.
ALSO READ: Madlanga commission: Did Masemola’s testimony sink Mchunu?
She said that had she been approached for her opinion on the disbandment of the PKTT, she would have spoken out against it.
“After everything is said and done, and everything that went into providing the coordinated approach, I would have strongly motivated against the disbandment of the task team. It was working; at that time, it was very evident that the team was functioning well, and the disbandment would be counterproductive and destructive to the amount of work that had gone into shaping the system and structure that was working well.”
