SAPS’s National Intervention Unit officer, Warrant Officer Steve Phakula, testifies about the handling of a crime scene during a 2021 drug bust in Aeroton.
Image: Independent Newspapers
SAPS National Intervention Unit officer, Warrant Officer Steve Phakula, was forced to concede that he lied during his testimony before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday after being confronted with contradictory evidence about the handling of the July 2021 drug seizure in Aeroton, south of Johannesburg.
Police had confiscated 750kg of cocaine bricks worth an estimated R300 million at Aeroton, where a truck had arrived to deliver legitimate cargo from Durban Harbour to Scania South Africa.
Phakula testified that Warrant Officer Marumo Magane, commander of the Crime Information Management and Analysis Centre at SAPS Zonkizwe police station, called him to the scene to help manage it.
Magane testified that he called Phakula after receiving a call from Gauteng traffic officer Samuel Mashaba about a potential drug bust.
Mashaba had received a tip-off from his informant, Tumelo Nku, regarding drugs smuggled in a truck from Durban to Johannesburg.
In oral testimony, Phakula said he knew the black plastic bags contained cocaine because he could smell them.
That contradicted his written statement, which said the exhibits, already removed from the shipping container and loaded onto Magane’s bakkie, were intact when he arrived.
He had previously told the commission that he had no idea what cocaine smelled like.
Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, chairing the commission, criticised him for lying.
"When I engaged you earlier, you accepted that you have no idea whatsoever how cocaine smells, and yet you have said to Commissioner (Sandile) Khumalo you smelled the cocaine, and on that basis, I said you lied because later, when I engaged you, you accepted you do not know how cocaine smells and yet you had said you smelled the cocaine."
Evidence leader Advocate Teboho Mosikili interjected, saying that if Phakula could not smell the drugs, he must have known they were there another way.
"The question is how did he know it is in fact cocaine in there because he could not have smelled it?" he said.
In an about-turn, Phakula said he did not know for a fact what kind of drug it was.
The commission noted that one of the bags was torn and suggested he could have smelled it through the tear.
Phakula denied doing so, saying he assumed the bags contained drugs because the information he received said they were suspected drugs.
Commissioner Sesi Baloyi pointed out further contradictions. "You said to us in your testimony earlier that you did not touch those bags that you saw in the bakkie because you did not want to further contaminate the exhibits," she said.
Baloyi also noted that Phakula initially said the bags were in their original form, but later mentioned that one was torn.
Phakula maintained the exhibits were intact when he arrived, but said the scene was no longer under his control afterward.
Under intense questioning, he admitted to touching the exhibits and said he had omitted that from his statement
Baloyi asked: "You are saying to us now that you, in fact, did touch the exhibits while you were on the scene?"
Phakula responded: "Correct, yes, that's what I am saying."
Earlier, Phakula implicated Crime Intelligence Office Major General Feroz Khan in the Aeroton drug seizure.
Phakula, who was arrested for drug trafficking alongside Magane, Mashaba, and Nku, informed the commission that after his release on bail, Khan suggested they meet.
During their encounter, Khan appeared to sympathise with him.
He told the commission that Khan laughed off the suggestion that the drugs belonged to him.
Phakula said the suggestion came from police corridor talk.
"Major General Khan asked me who the drugs belonged to and I told him that people say they belong to him and he laughed," he said.
Khan allegedly wanted to know the origin of the information about a truck transporting drugs from Durban, and Phakula offered to make Nku available to answer that question.
On Monday, the commission heard that part of the drugs went missing in police custody after being handed to the SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory.
rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za