BIG READ | Hero of Bangui but also central to battle over assassination of top Hawks investigator

Share current article via EmailShare current article via FacebookShare current article via TwitterShare current article via LinkedInMichael SchmidtEnter fullscreen mode displaying this image.ExpandA wounded Lt-Col Solly Lechoenyo, centre, with two fellow Recce operators, appears unfazed after his deadly firefight in the Battle of Bangui. Picture: Michael Schmidt’s collection It looks like a scene out of a war epic: a battle-hardened officer and his small group of loyal men facing overwhelming enemy forces make a heroic stand: though shot through his leg, he fires implacably at the rebels with his AK-47.

But the image is real, and the officer in question is a South African Special Forces general at the centre of a battle royale that is quietly being fought out between the defence department, the police special investigative Hawks unit, and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) over the assassination of top Hawks investigator Lt-Col Frans Mathipa.

Mathipa was gunned down on August 26 2023 on the N1 near Hammanskraal after being called away from his family by a phone call from an unknown man who lured him into an ambush by apparently claiming he had knowledge about the abduction from the Mall of Africa of Ethiopian national Abdella Hussein Abadiga and his bodyguard Kadir Abotese the previous December 29.

The missing Abadiga is believed, according to a two-part BBC Africa Eye investigative report by Dino Mahtani and Yeshiel Panchia, to have also been not only a US-sanctioned Islamic State militant but simultaneously also a South African intelligence asset.

The BBC linked his cellphone to the killing by US special forces of 10 Islamic State militants, including leader Bilal al-Sudani in Somalia on January 25, 2023. But Abadiga, who operated out of the “Little Somalia” of Mayfair, Johannesburg, may have become a target for elimination or secret rendition into US custody after he went off-script.

Hawks investigator Lt-Col Frans Mathipa. Picture: Hawks Gauteng The Hawks allege that Mathipa, who was investigating the Abadiga case, was shot with a high-velocity weapon from a black BMW owned by Peters Communications Trust (PCT), registered in 2017, a front company for the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) Special Forces (the “Recces”), and identified Recce Maj Sunnybooi Wambi as one of the vehicle’s passengers.

Wambi, now a lieutenant-colonel, is alleged to have led the Mall of Africa abduction operation ― but the Recces claimed in court that they held an unrelated civilian-clothed “training exercise” in the mall that day and that they have no knowledge of the missing men.

According to the BBC, in early 2023, the PCT front company was directed by Brig-Gen Herbert Mashego, at that stage the commander of 5 Special Forces Regiment (known as 5 Recce) based outside Phalaborwa, his subordinate Solly Lechoenyo, and 5 Recce members Kevin Olyn and Albert van Deventer.

Despite SANDF denials, the Hawks refused to let Mathipa’s memory die. Last year, since-retired Mashego, Lechoenyo, Wambi and nine other Recces ― Olyn, Van Deventer, Dawid Mogaditswe, Kingsley Letsatsi, Ntokozo Ngwenya, Boitumelo Nteleza, Paulos Matlou, Mojalefa Mokoena and Rebi Mpopetsi ― were charged with the abduction and murder of Abadiga and his bodyguard (though no bodies have been found), the assassination of Mathipa, fraud, obstruction of justice, and submitting false affidavits on the “training exercise”.

This image taken from CCTV at the Mall of Africa in Johannesburg on December 29 2022 shows the last time Abdella Hussein Abadiga was seen. Picture: Abdurahim Abadiga But before I examine the complexity of the assassination-disappearance case, allow me to give you some background on Solly Lechoenyo ― for his name really jumped out at me when the 12 accused denied the charges and were given bail.

Born in 1970, Sehularo Solomon Lechoenyo is a professional soldier rather than an MK veteran, with 33 years’ service under his web belt, his career almost approximating the duration of democracy itself. He now serves as general officer commanding (GOC) Special Forces, having replaced Brig-Gen Thamela “Tom” Yalo on January 1 this year.

Lechoenyo’s promotion provoked some outraged commentary in the media. But he is innocent until proven guilty and until these charges he had a reputation for being a straight arrow.

In 2013, as a lieutenant-colonel, Lechoenyo was deployed to Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), as commander of a small 28-man Recce component of a protective SANDF task force comprising the 154-member Charlie Company of Bloemfontein’s 1 Parachute Battalion under overall command of Col William “Dixie” Dixon.

The task force had been ordered to Bangui by former president Jacob Zuma on January 2 in activation of military protection clauses in a controversial 2007 defence co-operation agreement between then-president Thabo Mbeki and the CAR’s president François Bozizé that had seen the SANDF train 1,300 of the CAR’s Faca (Central African Armed Forces) soldiers because an alliance of Muslim rebels, the Séléka, abrogated a peace deal and seized the entire northeast of the country.

On March 22 2013, a defensive line of more than 1,100 African Fomac peacekeepers and 400 Faca soldiers at the town of Damara, 75km out from Dixon’s HQ, the “white line”, collapsed as the Séléka began their assault.

Fomac and a 250-strong French contingent at M’Poko Airport in Bangui abandoned the SANDF to defend the capital. First blood went to the rebels who ambushed Lechoenyo’s Recces 10km out of Damara, wounding two, but the Recces managed to withdraw to Bangui.

Given the drama then to unfold, I will switch to present tense, relying on the excellent accounts of defence analyst Helmoed Römer Heitman’s study The Battle in Bangui: The Untold Inside Story (2013) and journalists Warren Thompson, Stephan Hofstatter and James Oatway’s book The Battle of Bangui (2021).

The next morning, March 23, Séléka commander Gen Hassan Ahmat orders the vanguard of his Brigade Rouge to split into two parts: about 1,500 rebels venture down the northeastern RN1 highway from Damara into withering fire from SANDF Parabats at their “blue line” ambush 4.5km from the white line base ― but another 4,500 barrel down the northwestern RN2 and begin crossing the Bafini River bridge.

A mere 2km short of the bridge, the rebels are hit head-on by Lechoenyo’s charging Recces, supported by a Faca platoon, but the Faca troops only fire a few rounds, then turn tail and run.

Dixon establishes a stop line with his own command Land Cruiser, a mortar section and 107mm rocket battery 2.5km behind the leading Recces, who are directly engaging the enemy.

A Faca air force Mi-25 attack helicopter flown by a Ukrainian pilot fires several rockets ineffectively at the enemy then flies off and does not return.

In the nick of time, a second Recce group arrives at the M’Poko Airport, with six more Hornet Special Forces vehicles and extra ammunition, delivered by Ilyushin-76 and Hercules C-130 transports, bringing the 5 Recce component to 36 operators facing 4,500 rebels.

An intense battle evolves: the rebels are not the rag-tag guerrillas expected by defence intelligence, being well-trained, disciplined, and heavily armed with brand-new weaponry, including technicals with 14.5mm heavy machine guns, FN rifles, RPG-7 rockets, AGS-17 30mm automatic grenade launchers, SPG-9 recoilless 73mm rifles and mortars.

With the Recce Hornets running out of 107mm rockets, more than 60 of which have been fired, Dixon brings in the 81mm mortar crew from the Parabat Composite Weapons Platoon (CWP) under Recce Maj Peet Venter as the battle at the blue line has died down. An armoured Faca Ratel-90 joins in the fight for a while, but also withdraws.

Combat between the Recces/CWP and the rebels becomes hand-to-hand as the South Africans fight inch by bloody inch back down the RN2 towards a Y-junction with the RN1; the mortarmen will fire off more than 200 mortars, raining hell down on the rebels, hundreds of whom die in the metalstorm.

Lechoenyo drops his radio when shot while reporting to joint operations in Pretoria, apologises for the interruption and carries on with his report; wounded in the leg, he is constantly firing his weapon.

By the time the almost 24-hour firefight is over and the Séléka and SANDF agree to cease fire, the SANDF has fired off 10 tonnes of ammo, and 13 parabats have given their lives, most in an ambush at the Y-junction (two more will die later in hospital), for an estimated 1,200 Séléka rebel dead.

Yet not one Recce life is lost and Lechoenyo will later be awarded the Gold Protea and the Silver Leopard for his command and bravery in a battle that is justifiably viewed as a glorious feat of arms.

So now that Lechoenyo’s mettle on the battlefield has been established, it remains to detail how in hell he became entangled, a decade later, in a traitorous plot to assassinate a fellow officer in an allied specialist unit.

Because on the face of it, if Abadiga was captured by the Recces and sent to the US ― either under a 2001 extradition treaty or even via a more shadowy extrajudicial rendition process ― as now seems most likely, surely the SANDF could simply have informed Mathipa of this and demanded he stay in his lane and drop the inquiry?

But something else is afoot, as Wambi and five other junior Recce operators ― Mogaditswe, Letsatsi, Ngwenya, Nteleza and Matlou ― had their bail revoked but are refusing to appear in court, claiming they are ill, yet actually rumoured to be heavily armed and holed-up, with frustrated police unwilling to risk a deadly firefight and the resultant political fallout in effecting their arrest.

Only Lechoenyo and Mashego and their PCT front company directors, plus Mokoena and Mpopetsi, have appeared in the Randburg magistrate’s court, wearing masks. At least the hero of Bangui is prepared to face the music.

The defence department, which is providing military lawyers for the 12 accused, has now been given until November 19 by magistrate Hleziphi Mkhasibe to produce medical reports on the fitness of the absentees to stand trial.

But the defence has also warned the court it intends to apply to have the entire trial held in camera, claiming the talks between state departments on resolving the impasse are “classified”.

These security concerns appear to involve what Hennie van Vuuren of investigative nonprofit Open Secrets calls “a broad criminal network within the military”, with Wambi operational commander, accused by Van Vuuren’s sources of the torture of suspects in the December 2019 theft of 18 R4 rifles and three pistols from an army base — and the murder of one.

Until recently, Wambi led a sinister entity that I’ll call the “shadow unit”, which originated in 2010 with a handful of Recce operators as a close-protection squad for former president Jacob Zuma and by repute became accustomed to doing private jobs for “No 1”.

In 2016 it was formalised with a chain of command that led from Zuma down to the chief of the SANDF Gen Solly Shoke and then to the GOC Special Forces’ Tom Yalo. Yalo’s predecessor when the shadow unit was founded was Rudzani Maphwanya, who has since 2021 been chief of the SANDF.

Today, disguised as civilians, this clandestine presidential unit comprises about 30 Recce operators plus a few defence intelligence personnel, making it equal in size to each of 5 Recce’s five commandos. With PCT as its front company and President Cyril Ramaphosa as its new boss, it is cash-flush and can draw down weapons and equipment from Recce stores.

It has allegedly evolved into a dirty tricks unit: under the Geneva Conventions, to capture and kill opponents wearing civilian clothes is the war crime of perfidy, though defence correspondent Erika Gibson reports that an internal NPA memo states that the Recces admitted to kidnapping Abadiga and his bodyguard, but claimed they were merely deported to Ethiopia.

The commandos at 5 Recce reportedly hate the shadow unit for deprofessionalising their unique expertise, while Maphwanya is despised for wearing the wreathed dagger emblem of a Recce operator and the wings of a basic paratrooper on his uniform ― though he qualified for neither.

What really put the fox in the hen house in the Abadiga case appears to have been the two section 205 subpoenas fired by Mathipa at the military days before his assassination, asking that they reveal the vehicle-tracking data, IDs and cellphone numbers for tracing purposes of the accused Recces.

Open Secrets showed that the PCT vehicles used in the Abadiga kidnapping and Mathipa assassination were also used in December 2022 during the controversial offloading at Simon’s Town Naval Base of ammunition for Special Forces from US-sanctioned Russian cargo vessel the Lady R.

Though a presidential commission of inquiry ruled that no South African weapons had been loaded aboard the Lady R in exchange for the ammunition, it has been suggested that gold and/or diamonds could have formed a reciprocal outward-bound cargo for a sanctioned Russia direly in need of foreign exchange.

Analyst Piers Pigou of Intelwatch tells me: “There are some very unpalatable echoes of the past, yet there has not been a peep out of the political principals”, the ministers of defence, police and justice, and neither had the secretary of defence, the military ombudsman, nor the parliamentary oversight committee weighed in.

“This raises a range of questions about what else they [Wambi’s personnel] were involved in. It is a huge crossing of the line if they executed a fellow officer. What else is going on in this covert world of theirs that violates the rule of law? This matter is far more serious than anything we have seen in front of the Madlanga commission” on criminal factionalism in the police.

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