JOHANNESBURG - Advocates for Transformation (AFT) has condemned what it describes as a “sustained and escalating campaign of threats and intimidation” against Advocate Sandile Khumalo and its national chairperson, Advocate Myron Dewrance SC.
Khumalo is one of the co-commissioners at the Madlanga Commission.
In a statement on Tuesday, the movement of legal professionals said it had previously refrained from making the threats public but could no longer do so.
The threats are allegedly linked to disciplinary proceedings against a colleague who was charged with professional misconduct.
“The threats have become increasingly pernicious and aggressive, have spread to family members and other persons, and have now escalated, for the first time, to explicit threats of sexual violence against women,” AFT said.
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According to the organisation, the threatening communications were sent from multiple cellphone numbers to various recipients.
“They repeatedly name Advocate Dewrance SC and Advocate Khumalo SC, expressly invoke AFT and, in some instances, claim knowledge of the locations, workplaces or movements of those targeted. The available evidence has been preserved,” the statement said.
AFT said the threats should not be viewed as a private dispute or as threats directed only at individuals, but as part of what it described as a “disturbing pattern in South Africa in which those who perform functions within the administration of justice are threatened, intimidated and, in the most extreme cases, assassinated”.
The organisation said the threatening communications repeatedly blamed Khumalo for the events in question and instructed Dewrance and members of his family to “blame Sandile”.
AFT said the matter remained under investigation and that the authors of the threatening and intimidatory communications had not yet been identified.
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