Nicolette Kinnear is not a sideshow to the tragedy that inexorably coagulated around her husband, AntiGang Unit (AGU) detective Charl Kinnear, and their sons, Carlisle and Casleigh, in 2020 and that could have been averted.
“Out of the 3,000 occasions they pinged my husband’s phone over a period of time, they chose to kill him outside our family home. Not on his way to work, Not at work. At home,” Nicolette .
That, for her, makes things personal. Highly personal.
Besides, Nicolette and her sons remain witnesses who will eventually testify in the trial of those who – so far – have been caught in the police dragnet activated after Charl Kinnear’s brazen assassination on the afternoon of 18 September. This included underworld boss Nafiz Modack.
Which is why notice of withdrawal of the family’s security, signed by acting provincial commissioner Major General Thembisile Patekile, eight months after her husband was murdered, left Nicolette reeling.
But, she says, she is not the only vulnerable South African Police Service (SAPS) member who has lived with the threat of having protection withdrawn. (Nicolette has managed to retain security so far, although an assessment in May this year found “no threat”.)
Though Nicolette is aware that she faces risks from elements who are part of the criminal underworld, like her husband, she too is wary of his own colleagues and superiors who have been implicated in his murder.
An October 2021 Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) report, handed to Minister of Police Bheki Cele as well as then SAPS National Commissioner Khehla Sitole (or at least his office) in November, sets this out in no uncertain terms.
The Ipid investigation found that officers in the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (known as the Hawks), as well as its head, General Godfrey Lebeya, had been aware that Charl’s movements were being illegally monitored in the run-up to his assassination, but had failed to act.
It also exposed deep investigative weaknesses, broken chains of command, insufficient experience among AGU staff, as well as a lack of a sense of urgency with regard to pressing matters in a national investigation. It revealed a supine SAPS management that passed the buck with regard to Charl’s safety and who have now been landed with the Ipid hot potato.
Modack, later charged alongside Jacques Cronje and AGU member Ashley Tabisher of plotting to assassinate Charl, was denied bail in January 2022.
Back in 2020 and immediately after Charl’s assassination, Ipid was instructed by Cele, as well as Sitole, to investigate the removal of Charl’s protection 15 days prior to his murder.
In November 2021, Ipid completed the investigation and forwarded a 67-page damning, steaming pile of a report to both Sitole and Cele.
According to investigators, the report (which has had sight of) was regarded as “final”, although this is now disputed by Cele’s office.