The real mastermind behind the murder of former Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates captain, Senzo Meyiwa, is allegedly targeting the lead investigator, Brigadier Bongani Gininda, with a plot to kill him.
Gininda, who is the head of the SAPS cold case unit and led the investigation team that arrested the five men accused of killing Meyiwa, has been warned to watch his back as he is the next target.
Gininda has had his security breached, including his personal information (home address and personal number) posted online. The brigadier has also received recorded death threats from unknown individuals and numbers.
“Gininda started getting death threats and being targeted when it was revealed that he was the lead investigator of the Meyiwa murder case. Instead of giving him flowers, he has been getting death threats,” a source with intimate knowledge within the SAPS said.
The source added that Gininda has been showing bravery when he appears in court, where he has been testifying and cross-examined, but his security has been beefed up as the national police commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, “doesn’t want to take chances”.
Masemola has issued a warning, stating that anyone who targets Gininda and other senior officials by posting their personal information online will face the wrath of the law. Sunday World established that the Hawks are investigating Gininda’s case and have already gone as far as Free State and Western Cape in pursuit of the suspects. “The last people who got into the police system and retrieved Gininda’s personal information have already been identified and statements are being collected from them,” said the source.
When contacted for comment this week, Gininda wouldn’t confirm or deny the threats on his life. “My focus is on the trial right now, and I don’t speak to the media about my personal life,” he said.
While testifying at the high court in Pretoria, where the five men accused of killing Meyiwa at his then-girlfriend, pop star Kelly Khumalo’s mother’s house in Vosloorus on October 26, 2014, Gininda revealed that he had initially wanted to arrest the musician as the sixth suspect and charge her with conspiracy to murder but the NPA did not approve his application for her arrest warrant.
Ginida also revealed that Khumalo had sent a WhatsApp message to her sister, Zandile, that she wanted to “get rid” of Meyiwa a year before he was killed. He named Khumalo as the mastermind of Meyiwa’s murder.
Gininda told the court that cellphone evidence could prove that Khumalo had communicated with the accused Mthobisi Mncube. The court also heard that Khumalo communicated with another accused, Fisokuhle Ntuli, weeks before
Meyiwa’s death.
Authorities have accused Ntuli of orchestrating Meyiwa’s murder and Mncube of being the gunman who shot the soccer star.
Another source within the police says although they believe Khumalo might allegedly have had a hand in Meyiwa’s murder, “she isn’t the real mastermind”.
“But if she is arrested, we strongly believe that she can lead us to the real mastermind who has been pulling the strings behind the scenes.
“We also believe that the real mastermind is the one behind Gininda’s threats,” the source said.
Former police clerk Patricia Morgan-Mashale has been a vocal critic of Gininda and other police officers on social media.
Morgan-Mashale has allegedly been named by police moles as “a useful tool” to smear Gininda and other police officers on social media.
Morgan-Mashale is facing multiple lawsuits from various police officers, who are suing her for defaming them on social media.
One of the senior police officers who sued Morgan-Mashale for defamation is General Shadrack Sibiya, the deputy national police commissioner of crime detection, after she posted a series of “impugned statements” about him on her social media accounts.
She accused Sibiya, on her social media accounts, of tampering with evidence on the Meyiwa murder scene, as “he was the first one on the Senzo Meyiwa case”.
Morgan-Mashale also posted on her social media accounts that she has “evidence that there was no intruder on the night Senzo got killed”.
In his court papers, General Sibiya said Morgan-Mashale posted defamatory statements on her social media she received from a third party without verifying them and asked the court to order her to delete all of them and apologise.
Additionally, Morgan- Mashale faces accusations of posting defamatory statements about Gininda.
“Patricia isn’t a whistleblower but an information peddler who is hungry for publicity, and she has been defaming innocent people on social media in the name of blowing a whistle,” another police officer, who asked not to be named, said.
Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Thandi Mbambo could not verify details, saying it was likely that the case was handled by Germiston Organised Crime unit.
