{"id":94120,"date":"2025-12-11T15:59:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder"},"modified":"2025-12-11T16:12:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T16:12:52","slug":"ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder","title":{"rendered":"Ntshavheni Defends Witness Protection After Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has defended the government\u2019s witness protection program, stating it should not be questioned when whistleblowers choose to decline the offer of protection.<\/p>\n<p>The safety of whistleblowers has been in the spotlight this week following the murder of Marius van der Merwe, a witness at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.<\/p>\n<p>READ: South Africa vows not to aid Gaza depopulation, cancels visas<\/p>\n<p>Van der Merwe, who testified last month under the alias \u201cWitness D,\u201d was killed at his home in Brakpan last Friday\u2014in front of his wife and children.<\/p>\n<p>He had made serious allegations before the Commission, claiming that suspended EMPD officer Julius Mkhwanazi allegedly forced him to dispose of a body.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a post-Cabinet media briefing today, Minister Ntshavheni emphasised that the government takes the safety of witnesses seriously.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Department of Justice, which is responsible for witness protection, had offered witness protection services to Witness D and he declined. So if witnesses decline offers, why do we criticise the witness protection services? The witness protection service will never be perfect but it\u2019s a work of continuous improvement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She urged that the police must be given space to probe the motive behind Witness D\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are making a lot of assumptions. Police are still investigating. So we do not know whether Witness D was killed because of the evidence he provided to the Madlanga Commission.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has defended the government\u2019s witness protection program, stating it should not be questioned when whistleblowers choose to decline the offer of protection. The safety of whistleblowers has been in the spotlight this week following the murder of Marius van der Merwe, a witness at the Madlanga [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":94119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-94120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ntshavheni Defends Witness Protection After Murder - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has defended the government\u2019s witness protection program, stating it sho ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ntshavheni Defends Witness Protection After Murder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has defended the government\u2019s witness protection program, stating it sho ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-11T15:59:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-11T16:12:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765456927.695489.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Ntshavheni Defends Witness Protection After Murder\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-11T15:59:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-11T16:12:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder\"},\"wordCount\":254,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765456927.695489.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/ntshavheni-defends-witness-protection-after-murder\",\"name\":\"Ntshavheni Defends Witness Protection After Murder - 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