Special forces on trial

0:00Dino Mahtani:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

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1:20Dino Mahtani:So this is the final road on Mathiba's last journey. It is indeed. So on his last day, he was supposed to meet with an alleged whistleblower at the BP car wash in Linwood in Pretoria. And this is the route that he took home after that person didn't show at the meeting. and we are about to, in just a few metres, approach the site where he died. On a Sunday evening in August 2023, Lieutenant Colonel Franz Matiba was found dead in his upturned car by the side of a motorway outside Pretoria. Where's the actual spot?

2:02Yeshiel Panchia:Right there behind us on the right. It's literally the place where he died.

2:11Dino Mahtani:Matiba was one of South Africa's top detectives, a veteran member of an elite police unit known as the Hawks. First reports from the scene suggested he was the victim of a tragic accident. But when Matiba's colleague, Colonel Peter Beekman, arrived, he discovered the death was no accident.

2:30Yeshiel Panchia:As I approached the scene, I was only seeing the white polo of which Franz Matiba was driving. It's on his side. I was under the impression the scene is already being processed. But when I go inside the vehicle, when I realise that it's still in the car, I see a bullet hole through the pillar. It's been shot when the whole tram scene was changed because when we realised it's a murder scene, it was a hit.

3:02Dino Mahtani:In the year Matiba was shot, a South African police officer was killed once every three days. But there was something very different about this murder.

3:11Yeshiel Panchia:The mystery surrounding the death of respected Hawks Detective Lieutenant Colonel Franz Matiba deepens. In fact, he was killed in an apparent ambush.

3:22Dino Mahtani:Matiba had been investigating whether South Africa's special forces were behind the disappearance of a member of so-called Islamic State, or ISIS. On the day of his murder, Matiba went to meet a mysterious informant who claimed to have vital information. Police say it was a set-up. The informant never showed and as Matiba drove home, he was tailed by a black BMW. Police believe the occupants opened fire and shot Matiba dead. The 53-year-old was a much-loved husband and father. We are trying to call but no one is really coping.

4:01Yeshiel Panchia:We need justice. We need justice. Those people should get arrested so that their kids can feel the pain that I'm feeling. I'm never going to hug my dad anymore.

4:18Dino Mahtani:This is the documentary from the World Service. I'm Dino Matani, and together with my colleague Yashil Panchia, we've been investigating who killed Franz Matiba and why.

4:32Dino Mahtani:In April 2023, Matiba was assigned to the case police say ultimately led to his death, the investigation into the disappearance and presumed killings of a man named Abdallah Abadiga and his bodyguard. The two men were last seen in December 2022 at the Mall of Africa, a shopping centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg. So what do we know about Abdallah Abadiga? I first heard about him when I was researching ISIS in Africa. I was told he was a prominent member of the group. Abadiga fled Ethiopia and was granted asylum in South Africa in 2008. In 2017, then aged 43, he was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

5:20Dino Mahtani:He had allegedly gone there to forge links with an armed group that now brands itself as an ISIS affiliate. But in March 2020, having still not faced trial, Abadiga was mysteriously released and returned to South Africa. Just under two years later, Abadiga was sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department for allegedly being a key ISIS organiser and financial facilitator.

5:50Dino Mahtani:Abediga operated in Mayfair, the heart of Johannesburg's Ethiopian community. People here are reluctant to talk about him, but one contact did agree. For his safety, his words are spoken by an actor.

6:04Yeshiel Panchia:There is a lot of people that guard him. The mafia group, they call themselves ISIS, but they are a mafia.

6:12Dino Mahtani:According to the US, Abediga controlled two mosques in the city.

6:16Yeshiel Panchia:The community is terrorised. They are all in fear of them. They take hostages.

6:23Dino Mahtani:They establish their office there, in the back of the mosque, the Tagwa Mosque. Our source says Abediga extorted money under the guise of zakat, the religious obligation for Muslims to give to charity. So they start making extortion from the richest ones. They're claiming, bring zakat, bring zakat, bring zakat. Whoever refused, they burned their shop. They burned their houses. Sources have told us Abadiga became wealthy and owned multiple properties. The US alleges he not only sent funds to ISIS supporters elsewhere in Africa, but also recruited for the group. But their most serious allegation against him is that he was a trusted supporter of Bilal al-Sudani, an ISIS figurehead in Somalia.

7:13Dino Mahtani:Sudani was accused by the US of funding the 2021 bomb attack at Kabul airport in Afghanistan. The feared attack, a bombing forewarned. Casualties rushed yet again into Kabul's emergency hospital. 13 US service members and 170 civilians were killed. So the man whose disappearance France Matiba was investigating was said to be both a dangerous criminal and accused by the US of being a terrorist with international connections. Months before Matiba was involved, an amateur detective was already on the case.

7:52Yeshiel Panchia:I know his family. I did business with his family many years. They contacted myself. The brother actually contacted me to say, you know what, he feels that my brother got kidnapped. They called out for help and I drove up the next day to Jobal.

8:06Dino Mahtani:This is Farhad Huma. I need to explain that he too is a controversial figure. He was also sanctioned by the US and on the same day as Abadiga. He denies claims he's the leader of a Durban-based ISIS cell. What evidence they've got, only God knows. We don't know nothing because they haven't given us any evidence.

8:27Yeshiel Panchia:I mean, if you really have evidence, really, I mean, charge me for it.

8:31Dino Mahtani:In South Africa, Huma has also been arrested on terrorism-related charges and a kidnapped man was found in the basement of one of his properties. But all the charges against Huma were dropped and he claims he has been unfairly targeted by police. However, Huma managed to persuade the police to open a case about the disappearance of Abadiga and an investigating officer was assigned. Shortly after, the two of them got the footage from the security cameras at the Mall of Africa.

9:03Yeshiel Panchia:They gave us everything, they put everything in the hard drive for us and we had to go through it. It took hours and hours to chase what happened.

9:10Dino Mahtani:It was a huge breakthrough. We have seen stills from the CCTV video, but not the full footage which the police say they have. According to Huma's testimony and other verified sources, this is what it reveals. At 9.55am on the day of their disappearance, Abdallah Abediga and his bodyguard arrive at the mall and park. Between 10am and noon, they sit in the food court, where they meet with contacts. The two men are then seen making their way back to the car park. But Humer says that as they do so, they are followed. One man in particular, wearing a blue top, stands out. At 12.11, only three seconds after Aberdeega pays for parking, the man in the blue top uses the same machine.

9:59Dino Mahtani:The police say he follows Aberdeega and his bodyguard into the parking lot. And then...

10:10Dino Mahtani:Well, we don't know what happens in the next seven minutes, because there are no cameras where Abadiga parked. But at 12.18, CCTV shows a BMW, a Mercedes and an Audi drive to an exit barrier. Huma and the police believe that Abadiga and his bodyguard were in the back of one of these vehicles and had been abducted. CCTV shows four and a half hours later, the Audi returns to the mall with another car. The man in the blue top is seen paying for parking again. Then the vehicles, together with Abedigo's car, drive away. The footage contained one more vital clue. The licence plates of the suspected kidnapper's vehicles were clearly visible.

10:57Yeshiel Panchia:The whole puzzle fell in place as we investigated. When we got the car registration number, We checked the number.

11:06Dino Mahtani:The vehicles were registered to a company called Peter's Communications Trust, based outside Pretoria. So my colleague Yashil drove us there to take a look.

11:23Dino Mahtani:So we're approaching an address now, which was the original registered address of Peter's Communications Trust. and the investigating officer, when he was looking into the company, came to this address. It's just a very normal-looking house. However, when the police investigator came calling, the person who answered was a big surprise. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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13:03Dino Mahtani:I'm Dino Matani and with my colleague Yashil Panchia, we're investigating the murder of South African detective France Matiba. A retired military officer opened the door. In fact, registration documents show that at the time the company's four directors were all senior figures in the special forces. They included Herbert Macheco, then commanding officer of five special forces regiment. So was the military responsible for Aberdeega's disappearance? On the 17th of January 2023, the police officer investigating the case met with members of the special forces. Huma was not allowed in

13:46Yeshiel Panchia:We wanted to know what's happening Okay, we know that the military was involved in the kidnapping

13:49Dino Mahtani:We just wanted the fact that we wanted the guy back Nothing else The outcome of the meeting was not what Huma had hoped for The investigator made it clear he could no longer work with Huma

14:01Yeshiel Panchia:The whole investigation stopped So we asked him, we said, you know, what is this? So basically they informed him that we are ISIS, which is a lie We stopped investigating. That's why we had to go to court.

14:14Dino Mahtani:In February 2023, Abediga's brother Amin filed a petition asking the court to force Peter's Communications Trust, the defence minister or other ministers to reveal the whereabouts of the missing men. South Africa's president was also among the respondents listed on the petition, because under the country's constitution, only he can authorise special forces to operate domestically. We approached President Cyril Ramaphosa's office to ask whether he had any knowledge of any such deployment or Aberdeer's abduction, but he declined to comment. Brigadier General Meshago replied to the petition denying all knowledge of Aberdeer.

14:57Dino Mahtani:He admitted there had been Special Forces soldiers at the mall on the day of Aberdeer's disappearance, but he said they were only there on a training exercise. He named a major sunny boy Wambi as being the officer in charge. He also identified Wambi as the man in the blue top from the mall CCTV.

15:18Yeshiel Panchia:This season you've won it. What would you say you've done differently this season compared to last season?

15:24Dino Mahtani:We found several videos of Wambi online. In his spare time, he coaches a football team. It was a matter of making sure that you keep the squad together. and then you had a little bit of experience because when you look at the last season's team, it was full of... In April 2023, four months after Abediga vanished, the investigation was transferred to France Matiba.