Ad-Hoc Committee
Cat Matlala told Parliament that police planted fake evidence on his phone and manipulated WhatsApp chats to frame him. He denied links to criminal networks and claimed investigators edited audio clips and doctored digital records to create a false narrative against him amid political tensions.
Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala has accused police investigators of tampering with key digital evidence in the case that links him to alleged criminal networks and political interference, telling Parliament that officers planted fake information on his phone and manipulated WhatsApp conversations to implicate him.
Matlala appeared before the ad hoc committee probing alleged corruption within law-enforcement agencies, where he repeatedly insisted that the messages presented as proof of his dealings with businessman Brown Mogotsi had been “doctored” after his arrest.
According to Matlala, his cellphone was seized on 14 May. He claimed that any WhatsApp activity dated after that day could not have come from him. Instead, he argued, investigators had unlimited access to the device and used that window to generate bogus chats under his name. He told MPs that screenshots were being used in place of original logs, something he said made it easier to fabricate conversations and disguise inconsistencies.
He also alleged that earlier proceedings in a related commission had relied on manipulated audio clips that falsely depicted him admitting to wrongdoing. Matlala insisted he never made those statements, saying the recordings were “spliced and edited”.
Committee members pressed him about why some WhatsApp messages appeared to show him operating under the name “Dlamini”. Matlala said Dlamini was his grandmother’s surname, but denied ever using it formally. He suggested that someone else might have saved his number under that name, but said the messages themselves were not authentic.
Matlala further distanced himself from any direct contact with former Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. He claimed that his interactions with Mogotsi were part of a strategy he undertook at the instruction of former minister Bheki Cele, saying he was told to “string Mogotsi along” to make it appear as though he was engaging with people aligned to Mchunu. He insisted he was being framed to create a political narrative around the leadership battle within the police ministry.
