{"id":31311,"date":"2025-06-23T20:21:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T18:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/?p=31311"},"modified":"2025-06-23T20:21:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T18:21:27","slug":"12-soldiers-in-court-for-murder-of-hawks-investigator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/2025\/06\/23\/12-soldiers-in-court-for-murder-of-hawks-investigator\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a012 soldiers in court for murder of Hawks investigator\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-31313\" src=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa-770x578.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"770\" height=\"578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa-770x578.jpeg 770w, https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa.jpeg 852w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At least 12 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) have been implicated in the murder of Hawks investigator Lieutenant-Colonel, Frans Mathipa.<\/p>\n<p>While only two soldiers were arrested on Monday, the case took a dramatic turn when 10 other accused appeared before the Randburg Magistrate\u2019s Court.<\/p>\n<p>It is understood that the 10 handed themselves over to the Hawks on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>The suspects covered their faces with masks in court, and the media was barred from recording proceedings due to a pending identity parade.<\/p>\n<p>Mathipa, who specialised in crimes against the state, was gunned down on the N1 highway near Hammanskraal while on duty in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the hit, he was probing several high-profile cases, including the alleged abduction of an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader by SANDF members.<\/p>\n<p>Hawks Lieutenant-Colonel, Christopher Singo, revealed that Mathipa was investigating some of the accused.<\/p>\n\t<div class=\"qtmplayer-playlist-large\">\n\t\t<ul class=\"qtmplayer-playlist\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"qtmplayer-trackitem qtmplayer-track-inpage\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa-100x100.jpeg\" alt=\"cover\">\t\t<span \t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-cover=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa-370x370.jpeg\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-file=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SINGO.wav\n3604524\naudio\/wav\n\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-title=\"\u00a012 soldiers in court for murder of Hawks investigator\u00a0\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-artist=\"Lindiwe Mpanza\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-link=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/2025\/06\/23\/12-soldiers-in-court-for-murder-of-hawks-investigator\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-icon=\"file_download\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-qtmplayer-type=\"track\"\n\t\t\t class=\"qtmplayer-play qtmplayer-link-sec qtmplayer-play-btn\"><i class='material-icons' aria-label=\"Play\">play_arrow<\/i><\/span>\n\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"qtmplayer-tit\">\u00a012 soldiers in court for murder of Hawks investigator\u00a0<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"qtmplayer-art\">Lindiwe Mpanza<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n\t<\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul>\n\t<\/div>\t\t\t\n\t\n<p>The suspects face several charges, including three counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping, and fraud.<\/p>\n<p data-end=\"900\" data-start=\"649\">Police also seized a vehicle belonging to one of the accused after it was linked to the kidnapping of two male foreign nationals at a mall in Midrand in December 2022.<\/p>\n<p data-end=\"900\" data-start=\"649\">There are 13 accused in the matter, with the 13th being a company.<\/p>\n<p>They are expected to return to court next week Tuesday for a formal bail application.<\/p>\n<p>The state has expressed an intention to oppose bail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least 12 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) have been implicated in the murder of Hawks investigator Lieutenant-Colonel, Frans Mathipa. While only two soldiers were arrested on Monday, the case took a dramatic turn when 10 other accused appeared before the Randburg Magistrate\u2019s Court. It is ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":31313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Lieutenant-Colonel-Frans-Mathipa.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31320,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31311\/revisions\/31320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}