Danger, drama and deception — Charl Kinnear’s blueprint for his own assassination trial

Crime aspects that detective Charl Kinnear was investigating in the run-up to his murder are now part of the critical trial that is hinged on his assassination.

This means that alleged organised crime kingpin Nafiz Modack, and his 14 co-accused, are on trial for lawbreaking that Kinnear was involved in unravelling – as well as Kinnear’s own assassination in September 2020.

The trial finally started in the Western Cape High Court on 29 January and has already been marked with drama – Modack, who has claimed before that cops are corrupt, alleged on Thursday: “The police murdered Kinnear. I have the evidence.”

As it develops, the trial is set to expose even more distrust and problems in the South African Police Service (SAPS).

It will also emphasise the expanse of organised crime that is gripping the country’s gangsterism capital, the Western Cape, and extending to other provinces.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Charl Kinnear murder trial will expose the extent of the rot in the SAPS

Modack and his 14 co-accused face a torrent of criminal charges – 124 in total.

These are linked to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, intimidation, and the unlawful interception of communication for illegally tracking cellphones.

One of the conspiracy charges relates to a failed hit on Cape Town lawyer William Booth in April 2020.

The ‘Modack Enterprise’

Kinnear’s assassination, outside his Bishop Lavis home in Cape Town on 18 September 2020, is the most pivotal of the charges.

At the time of his killing, Kinnear had been investigating various organised crime suspects, Modack included, as well as several colleagues.

Even though the gunman who pumped bullets into him has apparently not been arrested, the murder case has progressed.

According to the indictment against the 15 accused on trial, they make up the “Modack Enterprise”. 

The indictment alleges they were connected via “informal agreements” to “corrupt police officials in order to obtain inside information relating to investigations conducted against” Modack, to find out when cops would conduct raids on him, and to intimidate police officers who were investigating him.

They were also accused of intimidation, extortion and of trying to kill – or murdering – “people that hindered the activities of the Enterprise”.

The indictment lists the charges according to date – December 2017, when the first crime was committed, up until Modack’s April 2021 arrest.  

Last week in court several accused pleaded not guilty to various counts.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Modack and co-accused plead not guilty to a murder in big Kinnear case amid tight high court security

Modack did not have a legal representative because he wanted the State to appoint pro-bono lawyers of his choice, which is not how the legal aid system works.

The trial commenced though.

On day four Modack pleaded not guilty to Kinnear’s murder and said he had evidence to prove police officers were behind it.

Earlier, on day one, among the charges to which he pleaded not guilty was the murder of Pitshou Falanga.

Nafiz Modack and his co-accused appear in the Western Cape High Court with a strong law enforcement presence during preliminary hearings on 29 January 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Jaco Marais)

Bouncer murder

Falanga was a bouncer who was fatally stabbed outside a nightclub in Green Point, a suburb near Cape Town’s city centre, on 3 December 2017.

Kinnear once referenced that killing – in a previous case against Modack that provides something of a blueprint for what to expect as the major high court trial into Kinnear’s own assassination now unfolds.

There is deep and tragic irony to this.

In December 2017 Modack and four other men were arrested. They faced accusations that they had used intimidatory tactics and extortion to secure a security contract at a Cape Town venue, the Grand Africa Café & Beach.

Read more in Daily Maverick: The Enforcers – Inside Cape Town’s Deadly Nightclub Battles

The overall allegations were that Modack and the four men had tried to muscle security away from other Cape Town crime accused – Mark Lifman, Andre Naude and Jerome “Donkie” Booysen.

Kinnear was the investigating officer overseeing that case against Modack and testified during an ensuing bail application.

‘More people will get killed’

Those proceedings, which played out in the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court between December 2017 and early 2018, were marked by several delays, astounding accusations and finger pointing.

Falanga’s murder fits in here.

Kinnear had testified that Modack and several others, including Jacques Cronje, who was facing criminal charges with Modack back then and who is among those now on trial with him, had gone to the venue Cubana in the time leading up to 3 December 2017.

They insisted on being given a VIP table, Kinnear had alleged, but none was available and an argument erupted, during which Falanga was fatally stabbed and a second man wounded.

According to Kinnear’s allegations, Modack left the scene and relocated Falanga’s killer to Johannesburg.

During those 201718 proceedings, Kinnear had also testified about Modack’s strange proximity to certain police officers, as well as a range of other organised crime dealings affecting Cape Town.

Testifying about why he felt Modack and his four co-accused should not be released on bail, Kinnear stated: “I see the possibility exists more innocent people will get killed and injured.”

But Modack and his co-accused were granted bail at the end of February 2018.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Modack and his Mafia gang co-accused out on bail

Two years later, in 2020, Modack and his three surviving co-accused were acquitted in that extortion case. (The fourth accused was murdered in 2018.)

But he was not off the legal hook for long.

In June 2020 police announced that a group of suspects, including Modack and several serving and former Gauteng cops, were arrested in connection with fraudulent gun licences.

Modack was also released on bail in that case.

Three months later, Kinnear was assassinated.

Nafiz Modack (left) and Zane Kilian appear in the Western Cape High Court for preliminary hearings on 29 January 2024.  (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Jaco Marais)

In a sense, he predicted his own murder because he had testified in court, in the extortion case against Modack, that “the possibility exists” that more people would be killed.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate later found that Kinnear’s assassination could result in cop corruption, linked to gun licences, collapsing.

As if pointing to that, the firearm licence case against Modack and the past and present Gauteng cops was provisionally withdrawn last year.

Cops and gangs

Accusations involving cops will be a central theme in the Kinnear murder trial.

Among Modack’s 14 co-accused is Ashley Tabisher, who was once a member of the police’s Anti-Gang Unit, of which Kinnear was also part.

This is especially ironic because among the charges Tabisher now faces with Modack and five others, is that he performed “acts which were aimed at causing, bringing about, promoting or contributing towards a pattern of criminal gang activity”.

The State alleges the Junky Funky Kids gang fits in here.

Last week, Tabisher, who was legally representing himself in court, pleaded not guilty to being part of a gang.

He reiterated that he had been a police officer.

Tabisher is not charged for Kinnear’s murder.

The State alleges Tabisher leaked police information for Modack’s benefit.

In exchange, according to the indictment, Tabisher was offered “R10 000.00 and a cellular phone which was supplied to him”.

Collusion

Tabisher has effectively argued before that he is the victim of a police operation that his former boss, retired Anti-Gang Unit head Andre Lincoln, is now not acknowledging.

According to Tabisher, he had dealings with two co-accused (not Modack) he is now on trial with, but he had been under the impression that this was State approved.

For his part, Modack has claimed before that cops have framed up.

There have also been informal suggestions, from organised crime arenas, that Kinnear was corrupt.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Smear and Loathing: Cop versus cop versus gangster in an unseemly melee that betrays the people’s trust

Among those who may testify for the State in the trial are former and current cops.

Kinnear himself previously complained about some of his colleagues.

In December 2018 he sent a critical 59-page letter of complaint to his bosses. The core of it was that certain cops in the Western Cape, some with links to Crime Intelligence, were working to frame him and some of his colleagues, including Lincoln.

Kinnear further claimed some of the officers were aligned to Modack.

Police and bystanders outside the Bishop Lavis, Cape Town, home of high-profile police investigator Charl Kinnear, following his murder on 18 September 2020. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

‘Twists and turns’

Like many other organised crime cases, it is anticipated that the Kinnear murder trial will be hit with delays and legal proceeding sidebars.

Take the case against Fadwaan “Vet” Murphy and others who were accused of various crimes including drug dealing stretching back to 2013.

In January this year Murphy was sentenced to 18 years in jail and fined R2-million.

Last year, according to the National Prosecuting Authority, he was convicted for “managing an enterprise conducted through a pattern of racketeering activity”.

Modack, meanwhile, has also been accused of running a criminal enterprise.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Nafiz Modack deeply implicated in assassinations in Cape Town, appears in multiple courts

In the case of Murphy, a July 2023 Western Cape High Court judgment summarised how the trial against him and his co-accused developed.

“The dramatic twists and turns in the proceedings have rivalled a work of fiction,” it said. “The presentation of the State’s case was protracted due to no less than six trials-within-a-trial, in which the defence challenged the admissibility of evidence. 

“It is no exaggeration to say that every conceivable technical point was taken on behalf of the accused.”

Security

As for the Kinnear murder trial, aside from potential delays and legal segues, a major issue already marking and underpinning the proceedings is security.

This is another ironic aspect because at the time of his assassination, Kinnear was meant to have been under SAPS-sanctioned protection, but he was not.

No SAPS officers have been held to account for that yet.

It previously emerged via other court cases in Cape Town that Modack was allegedly involved in dodgy aspects of purported private security – Kinnear was investigating that.

A portrait of Charl Kinnear outside his house in Bishop Lavis, Cape Town, on 18 September 2021. The anti-gang unit detective was assassinated outside his home on 18 September 2020. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)

Related issues extend further.

On 12 January, Kinnear’s widow Nicolette Kinnear told Daily Maverick that police officers based in the Western Cape had told her that an SAPS-organised security detail previously assigned to her was set to be withdrawn.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘Police are withdrawing my security again, despite imminent murder trial’ — slain cop Charl Kinnear’s widow

Together with her two sons, she had mostly been provided security since Kinnear’s murder.

The security, Nicolette said, was pulled on 28 January – a day before the trial into his assassination began.

Nicolette previously lodged a culpable homicide case against SAPS officers who played a role in withdrawing Kinnear’s security ahead of his murder.

Last week, while the trial slowly started unfolding, there was a heavy SAPS presence in and outside the court.

At one point during proceedings, Judge Robert Henney asked cops holding firearms in the courtroom to station themselves elsewhere because he was not comfortable with their presence.

The trial is expected to resume on Monday. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.