Court keeps ex-police chief Sibiya behind bars in NPA case

The Randburg Magistrates Court refused bail on Tuesday to Shadrack Sibiya, South Africa’s former deputy national police commissioner, handing the National Prosecuting Authority a procedural victory in a case it has treated as a matter of institutional risk rather than a routine bail question.

Magistrate Hleziphi Mkhasibe found that the 59-year-old had not shown exceptional circumstances justifying release. She sided with prosecutors who argued that freeing him would endanger witnesses, and she pointed to evidence suggesting Sibiya would go to great lengths to conceal evidence against him.

The NPA’s case rested on more than witness safety. Prosecutors also told the court they feared Sibiya, once a senior figure in the police service, could attempt to flee the country. Spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago welcomed the ruling in measured terms. “We are not talking about happiness. All we can say is that justice has been served,” he said. “Our job as the prosecutors is to give all the facts before the magistrate, and we have succeeded to give the facts.”

The charges themselves are grave. Sibiya faces multiple counts, including the alleged rape of an 18-year-old woman, human trafficking, and the sexual grooming of a 16-year-old girl. According to the allegations, he gave the woman alcohol before she lost consciousness and was raped at a hotel in Johannesburg.

Sibiya denies all the charges. He maintains his sexual encounter with the 18-year-old complainant was consensual. His arrest came in September, and he resigned from the police service earlier this month, cutting his formal ties to the institution he once helped lead.

Meanwhile, the bail ruling lands against a broader backdrop. Sibiya has been the subject of a judicial commission of inquiry examining wide-ranging allegations of corruption within the police and alleged ties between police figures and criminal networks. The commission, chaired by a retired judge, has heard accusations that Sibiya maintained close links to alleged members of those networks and received large sums of cash and gifts from them.

That combination, a former senior law enforcement official facing both criminal prosecution and corruption-related scrutiny, explains why prosecutors treated his potential release as a systemic risk. Their argument centred on the danger they said his freedom would pose to witnesses and the possibility he might leave South Africa entirely, concerns the magistrate evidently found persuasive.

For now, Sibiya remains behind bars, his legal team presumably weighing an appeal. Kganyago has already signalled the authority stands ready to oppose any challenge, saying outside court that “justice has to be served in its totality.” The criminal case will proceed separately from the commission’s work, but both touch the same underlying question: how far senior figures within the police service were entangled with criminal networks and misconduct. Whether Sibiya’s team can persuade a higher court otherwise is the next question the NPA has already promised to fight.