COMPILED BY LEN KALANE
Senior Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) investigator Colonel Brian Padayachee spent Tuesday in the witness box at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, pushing back against allegations that he is part of an illicit “Khan-Idac cabal” and defending both his qualifications and the corruption case against suspended Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo.
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What he testified to
Padayachee, who told the commission he has 44 years of experience in law enforcement, was appointed as a senior IDAC investigator in October 2021. He used his appearance to reject KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s public claim — made at a 6 July 2025 media briefing — that he is unqualified and was being used as a “pawn.”
On the substance of the Khumalo case, Padayachee told the commission the prosecution arose from a complaint laid by National Coloured Congress MP Fadiel Adams, not from any political motive. He was blunt in denying interference:
“I deny these allegations. They are baseless and devoid of merit. The Idac has sufficient evidence to sustain the charges in the criminal case against Lt-Gen Khumalo and other officials at crime intelligence.”
He added elsewhere that “there is no political interference. I have never received any calls or placed any undue pressure.”
Notably, Padayachee told the commission that Mkhwanazi had known in advance that Khumalo was going to be arrested, and had told him other generals would also be arrested and that “they must face their own situations” and that he “was comfortable” with it — a claim that, if accurate, sits awkwardly with Mkhwanazi’s later public framing of the arrest as a “war against Idac.”
The “Khan cabal” question
This is where his evidence bore most directly on the commission’s central inquiry: an alleged network linking IDAC to suspended Crime Intelligence deputy head Major-General Feroz Khan. Padayachee was unambiguous in his denial:
“I have no knowledge of the existence of a Khan-Idac cabal in the SAPS. I also have no knowledge of a Khan-Idac cabal within Idac.”
He did acknowledge a professional connection to Khan, saying he had “strictly an official working relationship with him” while both were involved in intelligence-related operations, and confirmed Khan is a state witness in the pending IDAC criminal cases against senior Crime Intelligence officers before the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court. He also revealed that Khan was a witness in two separate criminal cases involving senior crime intelligence officers before the Pretoria magistrates’ court.
Khan himself was not in the room to respond — he is reportedly unconscious in hospital after surviving an assassination attempt, and faces his own criminal charges of assault against a colleague and of operating a precious mineral syndicate.
The Andrea Johnson link
Padayachee’s evidence sits inside a broader IDAC-focused stretch of hearings examining the conduct of Advocate Andrea Johnson, the directorate’s head. The commission has previously heard from three witnesses who implicated Johnson in compromising an investigation into an assault allegation against Feroz Khan dating back to 2018, when Khan allegedly intimidated and assaulted a fellow Crime Intelligence official, Brigadier Phetle. Separately, the commission has heard broader whistleblower allegations that Padayachee and Johnson formed part of an alleged law enforcement “cabal” that employed irregular investigative methods, selectively handled sensitive complaints, and extorted suspects to protect favoured officials.
Johnson herself was due to give evidence but did not appear on Tuesday — her absence is the latest in a string of last-minute postponements that have frustrated the commission. She has previously told Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee that she firmly denies deliberately sabotaging investigations.
Other allegations aired
The commission also heard claims — not yet fully tested in evidence available to date — that Padayachee orchestrated illegal telephone interceptions and authorised covert surveillance outside legal limits, including allegations from Durban businessman Thoshan Panday that his communications were unlawfully monitored for over a decade through misuse of RICA interception orders, and that he inserted the phone numbers of unrelated high-profile figures, including former SAPS National Commissioner Bheki Cele, into surveillance applications.
Did he finish, and is he back Wednesday?
Based on reporting to date, there is no indication Padayachee is scheduled to return on Wednesday. That day, 15 July, is earmarked for a different, high-profile witness: Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, whose testimony was postponed from 7 July and whose statement had to be filed in advance. Commission spokesperson Jeremy Michaels has called Matlala a “central figure” in the investigation into criminality, political interference and organised-crime influence in law enforcement.
None of the sources available confirm whether Padayachee’s own evidence — including any cross-examination by evidence leaders or Mkhwanazi’s legal team — concluded on Tuesday or simply adjourned for the day. Given the volume of unresolved allegations put to him (surveillance conduct, the Cele phone numbers, the Panday claims), further sessions would not be surprising, but this is not confirmed in current coverage.
Was the subpoena based on “cabal” suspicion? A fair reading
It’s a reasonable but only partial inference. Padayachee was not called purely as a suspected cabal member — he is also lead investigator in the Khumalo prosecution and a figure Mkhwanazi has directly and publicly accused of corruption and incompetence, which alone would justify a subpoena to test both sides of that dispute. The “cabal” allegation is one strand among several: it originates from other witnesses’ testimony, not from any admission by Padayachee, and the commission appears to be using his appearance to test that claim against his account rather than proceeding from a settled premise that he is guilty of it.
His denial is emphatic but, like the surveillance and Khumalo-related allegations, remains untested by full cross-examination in what has been reported so far. Commission evidence is not itself a finding — chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga has repeatedly stressed that no conclusions have yet been reached on any of the claims before the inquiry.
All allegations referenced above remain before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry and are, at this stage, untested and unproven. Individuals named are presumed innocent of any alleged wrongdoing unless and until the commission or a court makes a finding.
