Overview
- Captain Laurance Makgotloe told the Madlanga Commission that ballistic evidence links the Vereeniging murder of Armand Swart to exhibits from the Bramley arrests.
- He said he made no additional linkages to other killings and suggested investigators misread broader connections pending IBIS imaging completed on 6 September 2024.
- Makgotloe alleged he was forcibly taken by officers from Witness B’s team and said he opened a kidnapping case with IPID on 8 January 2025.
- He and Brigadier Mishak Mkhabela testified that inaccuracies in the Swart report were typing or administrative errors due to workload, not deliberate manipulation.
- Security analyst Professor Jacob Mofokeng said testimony exposes structural problems at the SAPS forensic lab, warning that heavy workloads and weak review risk undermining prosecutions as hearings continue on Tuesday.