NCC leader Fadiel Adams has been arrested, facing serious allegations of fraud and defeating the ends of justice.
Image: Photographer Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Media
National Coloured Congress’s leader Fadiel Adams was arrested on Tuesday as he was tied to the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) wanting Adams to present himself at his nearest police station in connection with a case of fraud and defeating and or obstructing the course of justice.
SAPS had a warrant for his arrest relating to allegations that he interfered with ongoing investigations into the murder of the late ANC Youth League Leader, Mr Sindiso Magaqa.
Police claimed that through investigations, the PKTT team discovered that he interfered with the now convicted and sentenced hitman at a very sensitive and advanced stage of the police's investigation.
Police said that Adams was reportedly scheduled to appear before a KwaZulu-Natal court on Monday but failed to do so.
The PKTT’s hunt for Adams started with levelling accusations against not only the SAPS but also KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi after he claimed that members of the PKTT stormed a house he had previously owned in Mitchell’s Plain, on Saturday.
At a media briefing at Parliament on Sunday, Adams claimed that 15 members of the PKTT stormed a house in Westridge, Mitchell’s Plain, searching for him.
Adams and Mkhwanazi have been in each other’s cross-hairs since Mkhwanazi claimed at the Parliament Ad Hoc Committee hearings that Adams used a blue light escort to the prison in Westville.
Adams maintained that he was escorted by metro police, not the SAPS, to the Westville Prison. He said that he was on official duty and he went to the prison to interview the convicted killer of Magaqa.
Prior to his arrest, Adams spoke to the media, where he placed blame for his predicament on Crime Intelligence boss General Dumisani Khumalo.
“I've done nothing wrong. What they're accusing me of is something that happened a year ago, when I took a statement from the man who killed Magaqa, who implicates General Khumalo. The same General Khumalo heads the PKTT; the same General Khumalo who is before the courts. He's an alleged criminal because of charges that I laid.”
Adams was referring to the case he and other MPs opened, which resulted in the arrest of Khumalo and six other Crime Intelligence officials. They were arrested in June 2025 in a wide-ranging corruption probe involving the alleged irregular appointment of a civilian, Brigadier Dineo Mokwele, to a senior post at the rank of a brigadier within Crime Intelligence.
Mkhwanazi, who appeared before Ad Hoc and the Madlanga Commission, had made the claim at the Commission that Khumalo’s arrest was a result of confidential information that DA's Dianne Kohler Barnard and Adams made public, whereas they should have presented it to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.
Adams on Tuesday said: “What does his bail condition say? He's not allowed to tamper with any witnesses. Am I not a witness in this case? Is this not intimidation?”
Adams had also refuted SAPS' claims that he had been difficult to get a hold of. He said that they have been in contact for weeks. An email he shared with the media back in April showed that he was aware of KZN SAPS attempting to get a warrant of arrest for him. He had also shared the details of his attorney with the police.
On Tuesday, he said he had taken issue with the lack of information he had received from SAPS regarding why he had to hand himself over, and that he had launched a high court application to get more information from SAPS.
“Remember, we got a High Court application. The judges ordered them to bring the documentation. We want to see the documentation. We want see the legality of it. What kind of police man hides information? I’m saying what am I charged for? (They said) ‘No, we're not telling you’. (I asked) Which jurisdiction is it, so I can tell my family (whether) I'm going to KZN or I'm going to Gauteng? ‘No, we're not telling you’," Adams said.
“They know how to run smear campaigns. They know how to make people disappear. They know; this is what they're doing. I tell you now, if they had picked me up at four o'clock in the morning when no one was watching, I would never have made it to KZN alive. You'd have heard I tried to snatch a gun, or I tried to escape, and they would’ve shot me...”
theolin.tembo@inl.co.za