Police Tracking Data Places Officer at Murder Scene; Deputy Chief Trial Intensifies

BRAKPAN MAGISTRATES COURT, Thursday — The South African Police Service’s automatic vehicle location system placed former Sergeant Bhekokwakhe Sibande at the scene of businessman Emmanuel Mbense’s death, a fact that became the central accountability question in the ongoing murder trial against suspended Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief Julius Mkhwanazi and five co-accused.

The six accused face charges of murder and the disposal of Mbense’s body. Sibande, the second accused, is a former SAPS sergeant who arrived at Mbense’s home while off duty, driving a state vehicle after receiving a WhatsApp message. The investigating officer told the court that SAPS protocol does not permit off-duty officers to self-deploy to crime scenes.

Additional reference context is available at https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/08/27/mbense-murder-trial-off-duty-officer-questioned-over-presence-at-crime-scene.

“SAPS doesn’t run out of members to attend the crime scene when it’s necessary,” the investigating officer stated. “If you are off duty, you are off duty; somebody on duty must go and attend the scene.”

That testimony cuts to the heart of the procedural dispute. Sibande told the court he left the scene once other officials arrived to take over. The investigating officer, however, presented a different regulatory reality: every crime scene in South Africa falls under SAPS jurisdiction, and no officer may relinquish control without conducting a formal handover to senior SAPS officials. No evidence of such a handover was placed before the court.

The absence of a documented handover is not a minor administrative gap. It goes directly to questions of command accountability and whether Sibande’s departure was a lawful conclusion of duty or an unauthorized exit from a scene he had no mandate to attend in the first place.

The defence pushed back. Sibande’s advocate argued that he was never in charge of the scene, found other officers already present on arrival, and left when his assistance was no longer needed. The defence also challenged the State’s identification of Sibande as one of two uniformed police officers referenced by witness Marius van der Merwe, a figure cited in connection with the Madlanga Commission, arguing that identification cannot simply be assumed.

Meanwhile, the broader evidentiary picture before the court involves the State’s narrative of coordinated police involvement set against the defence’s characterization of Sibande’s presence as incidental and properly concluded. The tension between those two framings will shape how the court weighs each accused’s culpability.

All six accused are currently seeking bail. The court’s examination of Sibande’s off-duty response reflects the wider institutional questions running through this trial: who authorized what, which protocols governed conduct at the scene, and whether the chain of command was followed or deliberately circumvented.

Whether the court finds the absence of a formal handover sufficient to undermine Sibande’s account, or accepts the defence’s framing of an incidental and concluded presence, remains the open question as proceedings continue.