Evidence that South African special forces murdered top detective shared with BBC
The case Mathipa had been investigating was sensitive. It centred on an Ethiopian man called Abdella Abadigga, an alleged so-called Islamic State [IS] militant. He
The case Mathipa had been investigating was sensitive. It centred on an Ethiopian man called Abdella Abadigga, an alleged so-called Islamic State [IS] militant. He had been granted temporary asylum in South Africa in 2008, but was arrested abroad in 2017. Abadigga had then been smuggled back into the country, by the South African military and Department of Home Affairs, to be used as an intelligence asset - but had "gone rogue", according to Col Tollie Vreugdenburg, former head of counter-terrorism in The Hawks. Abadigga had gone on to extort Johannesburg's Ethiopian neighbourhood, sources in the community told us. This money was used to fund IS, says the US government. We asked the South African army if it had facilitated Abadigga's return to South Africa.
And we asked the Department of Home Affairs if it had lied about a planned deportation of him to Ethiopia, and had instead smuggled him back into South Africa on an expired passport and refugee permit. They did not respond. Specifically, Mathipa was investigating the allegation that special forces had then gone on to abduct and kill Abadigga in December 2022 - who the United States, earlier that year, had put under sanctions, designating him an IS recruiter and fundraiser, as well as a trusted supporter of Bilal al-Sudani, a top IS figure in Somalia. Court documents show that after Abadigga's abduction, his phone connected to a mast near a military base. Police sources say it was used to call a number in Somalia.
The Pentagon did not respond to the BBC's question on whether Abadigga's phone helped locate al-Sudani, who was killed by US special forces in Somalia in January 2023, only a few weeks after Abadigga's alleged abduction. We also asked South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa whether Abadigga had been kidnapped at the behest of the US. He declined to comment. When Mathipa was assigned the case, four months before his own death, he already knew special forces were implicated, but he was trying to secure more evidence. He was building on information already gathered by Abadigga's brother, Ameen - who had opened a missing person's case soon after the disappearance, and had been assigned an investigating officer (IO) from local police.
He and the IO had obtained CCTV footage showing the last known movements of Abadigga and his bodyguard Kadir Abotese at the Mall of Africa, a shopping centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The footage, clips of which the BBC has seen, shows a man in a blue top following Abadigga and his bodyguard as they leave the food court to head back to the car park, and paying for parking three seconds after Abadigga and Abotese do. The mall CCTV footage contains another vital clue. The licence plates of the suspected kidnappers' vehicles are clearly visible.
The BriefWire