Lieutenant-Colonel PN Mathipa, the lead Hawks investigator in the alleged abduction of Abdella Abadiga, an alleged ISIS leader, from the Mall of Africa in December 2022, was assassinated on the N1 near Hammanskraal on Sunday evening.
Hawks investigator in Abdella Abadinga abduction assassinated: Here’s everything we know
Mathipa, who was part of the Gauteng Hawks Crimes Against the State Unit, was shot at while driving to collect information related to Abadiga’s kidnapping, as first reported by Dispatch Live.
Shooting Incident on N1 Highway
The shooting incident occurred on Sunday night at around 20:00 on the N1 highway towards Hammanskraal.
RelatedPosts
Initial reports indicated a “single-vehicle accident” on the N1, but upon investigation, authorities discovered that Mathipa’s vehicle, a white VW Polo with registration JX63PC GP, had rolled, and Mathipa was found dead.
Further examination revealed an exit wound of a bullet on the left side of Mathipa’s face, matching an exit hole on the left side of the vehicle.
Mathipa’s Involvement in the Abadiga Case
Both an incident report and a family member of Abadiga confirmed that Mathipa was on duty, collecting information related to Abadiga’s alleged kidnapping at the time of the incident.
The Gauteng Hawks Crimes Against the State Unit was investigating several cases, including the kidnapping of Abadiga, an Ethiopian believed to have been an ISIS organiser in sub-Saharan Africa.
Abadiga had been based in South Africa as an asylum seeker but was arrested in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2017 while attempting to travel to Goma, a city in the war-torn east of the country, allegedly to join the terrorist group Alliance for Democratic Change (ADF), which pledged allegiance to ISIS and carried out terror attacks in Uganda.
Abadiga gained notoriety when the US Treasury Department placed him and three others in South Africa on a sanctions list in March 2022 for allegedly funding and coordinating ISIS activities in Africa.
Prior to his disappearance, he had encountered legal trouble at a roadblock near Orange Farm, where he was briefly detained for problems with his immigration status.
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) claimed that a training exercise was conducted at the Mall of Africa on the day of Abadiga’s alleged abduction.
Such exercises are carried out to familiarise Special Forces with public spaces and to plan evacuation strategies in case of emergencies.
The Hawks national spokesperson, Colonel Philani Nkwalase, mentioned that an official statement would be issued soon in response to the incident.
Meanwhile, Maj-Gen Herbert Mashego denied any involvement in Abadiga’s disappearance, stating that the SANDF’s exercises at the Mall of Africa were routine training exercises for emergency situations.
Investigations into the death of Mathipa are still ongoing. At this stage, no developments have surfaced linking the Hawks investigator to the abduction of Abadiga.
