A man implicated in testimony before the Madlanga Commission has taken his own life. Wiandre Pretorius, 41, shot himself at an Astron Energy filling station in Brakpan on Saturday night, 7 February 2026.

Police received reports at 22:00. Officers found Pretorius’s body with a firearm beside it. His fiancée, a police sergeant, was present. CCTV footage shows the couple arguing moments before the incident.

Pretorius survived an assassination attempt four days earlier. On 5 February gunmen fired 16 bullets into his bakkie outside his Boksburg home.

Four of 12 persons of interest now dead

Pretorius was one of 12 people identified as persons of interest in the 2022 murder of Emmanuel Mbense. Mbense was allegedly tortured and killed by Ekurhuleni metro police officers before his body was dumped in Duduza Dam.

Three others were killed execution-style: one in 2023 and two in 2025. Pretorius’s death leaves eight survivors.

Gauteng police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe confirmed on Sunday that Pretorius had been questioned and his firearms seized as a person of interest in the murder of Marius van der Merwe — the man known as Witness D at the Madlanga Commission.

Witness D testified in November 2025 that Pretorius helped dispose of Mbense’s body. Van der Merwe was gunned down outside his Brakpan home on 5 December 2025.

“The question is: are we dealing with a syndicate that is eliminating each other in relation to the Emmanuel Mbense murder? That is what our detectives are probing,” Mathe told reporters.

She added that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) has completed its probe into the Mbense killing and that “arrests are imminent”.

Madlanga Commission resumes on Monday

The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system will resume proceedings on Monday. Spokesperson Jeremy Michaels said several witnesses will testify on criminality and corruption in the City of Ekurhuleni.

The commission delivered its interim report to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 17 December 2025. Phase two is now underway.