Cele: Police believed AKA's fiance was murdered

FORMER South African Police Minister Bheki Cele told Parliament that cops believed that AKA's then-fiance Anele "Nellie" Tembe was murdered.

Tembe, 22, died on 11 April 2021. Her death was ruled a suicide after she fell from the 10th floor of the Pepper Club Hotel in Cape Town.

After her tragic death, videos and photos emerged online showing the couple engaged in a heated argument. Police investigations, though, concluded that Tembe took her own life, a notion that some netizens have fiercely disputed, suggesting instead that it was murder.

During his appearance at the Ad Hoc Committee inquiry into corruption in the South African Police Service (SAPS) on Thursday, 23 October, Cele presented explosive testimony around the case, saying prosecutors in the Western Cape won't take up the case.

In a brief video clip, Cele says: "Western Cape is one of the areas, when it comes to policy, prosecution, by the way, that has been problematic. I'm sure you will hear one day that there is an inquest into the death of Moses Tembe's daughter. 

"Police did the investigation, and they believed that the daughter was murdered, they believed. They went time and again to the prosecutor for the things to be enrolled, they would say 'Go back, dot the I's and cross the T's', until they said 'If you can't do it, give us a certificate'.

"I went to the president personally, I said Mr President, your Minister of Police is going to do something funny… he is going to support the private prosecution, and the prosecutor refused go give (the) certificate. So he can't prosecute, he can't give (the certificate), so you are stuck in the middle. 

"But I know now that the magistrate that is there now is asking the question of why wasn't this thing enrolled because it is an obvious case. He should ask the prosecutor that did not enroll it, in the Western Cape."

Forbes was himself murdered, when he was gunned down outside a Durban nightclub on 10 February 2023

His omgekrapte pa, Tony, told eNCA: “It’s just reopened the wounds and Kiernan has been spoken about as a murderer. It’s very unfair, it’s hurtful - he is not here to defend himself.

‘The NPA could actually just set the record straight.”