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KZN DPP Elaine Harrison testifying before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, 26 September 2025.
KwaZulu-Natal National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head, Adv Elaine Harrison says that if she was consulted, she would have strongly motivated against the disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT).
This, as Harrison, the Director of Public Prosecutions in the KZN province, took the stand before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system.
Harrison has sought to clarify that, from her vantage point, the PKTT was working, and had she been consulted prior to the 31 December 2024 directive, she would have opposed such a decision.
“After everything is said and done, and everything that went into providing the coordinated approach and providing this coordinated team. I would have strongly opposed the de-establishment. If I had been approached for a comment, I would have, because it showed that it was working. At that time, it was very evident that the team was working well and to de-establish it would both be counterproductive and also destructive of the vast amount of work that had gone into shaping the system and the structures that were now working well.”
The embattled Police Minister Senzo Mchunu disbanded the PKTT in December 2024.
Harrison says that the integrated approach between the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the task team in solving political killings had started to bear fruit post the COVID-19 pandemic.
She testified before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry in Pretoria.
“The interventions discussed in my letter were introduced in 2019, prior to COVID, and increased efficiencies were already visible. COVID-19 then interrupted matters in 2020. But by 2021, it was clear that the improved coordination of these matters was producing speedier enrolment and finalisation of political murder trials,” says Harrison.
[WATCH]
Advocate Harrison says political killings never ended in 1994, challenging the idea that democracy stopped politically motivated violence and pointing out that KZN continues to be a hotspot. pic.twitter.com/3s2BXJ2wye— SABC News (@SABCNews) September 26, 2025
Harrison also disputed an assertion that political killings only occurred before 1994.
This, after National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola told the commission this week that Mchunu had told him that there were no political killings after 1994.
Harrison says Mchunu’s decision had no justification.
Video | I heard about PKTT disbandment on social media:
