Africa-Press – South-Africa. Chief provincial inspector George Raftopoulous of the Gauteng traffic police, who flew a helicopter over Katiso “KT” Molefe’s house during an operation by the political killings task team on December 6 2024, says allegations of interference are untrue.
“I’m very disturbed about the comments. They are untrue, as I had no idea who Mr Molefe was or where he lived. I was merely assisting teams I worked with in the past. My understanding was that there were bogus police at the premises. That is the reason I volunteered to go.”
Raftopoulous told the Madlanga commission of inquiry Capt Barry Kruger from the Hawks called him about alleged bogus officers at the house and said he didn’t have ground members who could quickly go to the home to verify this, so he offered to take the helicopter.He said it was not the first time they had been called about bogus police officers.
“We previously assisted with bogus cops who were hijacking vehicles,” he said.
Brig Lesiba Mokoena, who instructed Hawks members to go to the scene, told the commission last week they had received information about bogus cops at Molefe’s property who claimed to be from the Hawks.
Mokoena told the commission he had received the report while attending the Hawks excellence awards in Pretoria East from his divisional head, who told him the then head of Hawks, Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya, had asked him to check on the bogus operation.
After being given the address, he confirmed he had contacted two of his operational members, including Kruger.
Raftopoulous said they have a good relationship with the Hawks and they would contact them when they needed assistance with operations.
“We usually fly to the specific address and monitor if there’s anything happening on the ground. We had previous issues of people impersonating somebody and immediately fleeing the scene.”
He told the commission about his participation in a WhatsApp group he was added to by Kruger.
In the group messages sent, there was a message from Kruger stating the operation was legal and he would forward the name of the commander in charge.
Raftopoulous said he took a video of Molefe’s premises and the surrounding area to forward to Kruger.
He said he took the video for future reference and for the Hawks if they needed it.
Mokoena confirmed to the commission that he sent the address to Kruger via WhatsApp and conceded he continued to send pictures of vehicles on the premises.
However, when asked about his participation in a WhatsApp group created by Kruger for briefings about the operation, Mokoena denied participating in the group.
However, he later conceded he had not been entirely truthful about participating in the WhatsApp group.
“If the confirmation is there, I will maintain I didn’t tell the truth to the best of my ability,” he said.
Investigators in the murder case of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart have testified about the operation at Molefe’s house.
They alleged Hawks members and a Gauteng traffic aircraft had appeared at the scene to try to interfere.
The investigators testified the investigation was marred by a lot of interest from senior South African Police Service officials and members of the public.
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