Forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan has accused KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi of applying double standards by publicly condemning political interference in policing while allegedly having succumbed to similar pressure during the Richard Mdluli saga more than a decade ago.
Testifying before the Madlanga Commission on Monday, O’Sullivan said Mkhwanazi’s widely publicised media briefing in July last year rested on two central themes: organised crime’s infiltration of the criminal justice system and political interference in the South African Police Service.
While saying he agreed that criminal infiltration of law enforcement was a longstanding problem, O’Sullivan argued that political interference was equally longstanding and that Mkhwanazi himself had previously been caught up in it.
“The irony of the latter fact is that during his period as acting national commissioner in 2012, General Mkhwanazi himself turned a blind eye to unlawful political interference relating to the then divisional commissioner of Crime Intelligence, Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli,” O’Sullivan testified.
“In fact, General Mkhwanazi not only turned a blind eye, but he also acquiesced to patently unlawful instructions, then later helped to cover it up.”
O’Sullivan based his allegations largely on Mkhwanazi’s sworn affidavit to the State Capture Commission in 2020, in which Mkhwanazi described political pressure surrounding Mdluli’s suspension.
According to O’Sullivan, Mkhwanazi acknowledged in that affidavit that then police minister Nathi Mthethwa instructed him to lift Mdluli’s suspension despite allegedly warning the minister that such an instruction was unlawful.
He argued that Mkhwanazi nevertheless complied.
O’Sullivan also criticised Mkhwanazi for telling Parliament in 2012 that he had acted on instructions from a “higher authority” without identifying the minister as the source of those instructions.
He further alleged that Mkhwanazi remained silent for years during litigation brought by Freedom Under Law challenging Mdluli’s reinstatement and only disclosed the minister’s role when he appeared before the State Capture Commission eight years later.
“When he enacted this unlawful instruction in 2012, he was invited to Parliament,” O’Sullivan said.
“He said, ‘I acted according to higher authority.’ When he was asked what the higher authority was, he declined to say.”
However, commissioners repeatedly challenged O’Sullivan’s conclusions, questioning whether Mkhwanazi’s past conduct undermined the substance of his later allegations of political interference.
Commissioner Sesi Baloyi asked whether O’Sullivan was effectively arguing that Mkhwanazi should never have spoken out.
Baloyi suggested another interpretation could be that Mkhwanazi had experienced a “Damascus moment” and decided years later to expose conduct in which he had previously participated.
O’Sullivan responded that he was not saying Mkhwanazi should have remained silent but argued that he should have fully disclosed his own previous involvement when presenting himself as a whistleblower.
“If you’re going to be a whistleblower, you should be a whistleblower with clean hands,” O’Sullivan said.
“I was involved in this conduct 14 years ago, and I saw the effect of it. But he didn’t do that.”
The commission also questioned O’Sullivan’s repeated claims that Mkhwanazi had “covered up” political interference for eight years.
Commissioners pointed to evidence that Mkhwanazi had publicly referred to acting under “higher authority” in Parliament and had later lodged a grievance against former national police commissioner Riah Phiyega over affidavits filed during the Mdluli litigation.
They suggested those actions appeared inconsistent with O’Sullivan’s contention that Mkhwanazi had remained completely silent.
O’Sullivan maintained that those disclosures stopped short of full transparency because Mkhwanazi never explicitly identified the minister or provided what he described as a complete account of the political interference at the time.
He further argued that Mkhwanazi should have approached the courts directly to correct what he described as misleading affidavits filed in the litigation instead of remaining silent while the matter unfolded.
- Forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan accused KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi of double standards, condemning political interference now while allegedly succumbing to it during the Richard Mdluli case in 2012.
- O’Sullivan testified that Mkhwanazi, as acting national commissioner, obeyed unlawful political instructions from then police minister Nathi Mthethwa to lift Mdluli’s suspension and later helped cover up the interference.
- Mkhwanazi had initially avoided naming the minister during a 2012 parliamentary testimony and only disclosed ministerial involvement eight years later at the State Capture Commission.
- The Madlanga Commission questioned O’Sullivan’s claims, suggesting Mkhwanazi may have had a “Damascus moment” and emphasizing that he did make some disclosures earlier, challenging the claim of full concealment.
- O’Sullivan argued Mkhwanazi lacked full transparency and should have openly confessed prior involvement and legally challenged misleading affidavits, asserting that whistleblowers must have "clean hands."
