Online Reporter
JOHANNESBURG. – The father of slain rapper Kiernan Jarryd Forbes, popularly known as AKA, has criticised the public airing of video footage showing his son’s fatal shooting.
The footage was played during testimony at the Madlanga commission last week.
Speaking to the ENCA, Tony Forbes said the airing of the footage was insensitive and unnecessary.
“It was a complete lack of sensitivity and very careless in how that footage was shown. It was not necessary in the context of the line of questioning.
“The questioning was about why the video was forwarded,” he said.
“Instead, the video resurfaces, and we have to relive it.
“The whole of South Africa sees my son being shot in cold blood. He was a proud South African,” he said.
Forbes said while he supports the work of the Commission, he does not understand why the footage was aired.
“I respect the work of the Commission and want positive outcomes.
“However, I do not understand how the Commissioners, in all their wisdom, allowed that footage to be displayed so carelessly,” he said.
AKA was shot and killed alongside his friend, Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane, outside a restaurant in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, on 10 February 2023.
He was 35.
The video showed the gunman observing AKA before opening fire at point-blank range as the rapper embraced a friend outside a Durban restaurant on Florida Road.
In a strongly worded letter sent to the Commission, Forbes expressed “extreme disappointment”, describing the public airing as “extremely insensitive and careless”.
He questioned the decision to show the full clip rather than still images, saying it forced the family to relive their trauma on national television.
“For me, that is the disappointment I have of this whole process,” Forbes told eNCA in an interview.
“I cannot understand that Advocate Chaskalson, who had the opportunity to view the footage, allowed this.
“Have they become so hardened that the cause justifies the means?”
Commission spokesperson Jeremy Michaels confirmed the body had received Forbes’s complaint and would meet privately with the Forbes family to explain the decision.
He stressed that the footage formed part of the evidence and that the Commission had warned the public beforehand about the sensitive material.
“Our job … is to investigate the very serious allegations of criminality, political interference, and corruption in the criminal justice system,” Michaels said.
The Madlanga Commission, formally the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System, was established by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2025.
Chaired by retired Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, it is probing the alleged infiltration of criminal syndicates into policing, intelligence, prosecution and the judiciary.
Seven men, including the Ndimande brothers Siyabonga and Malusi, who were extradited from Eswatini, face charges in the Durban High Court.
A pre-trial conference is scheduled for next month, with the trial set to begin in mid-June.
Forbes has called for greater sensitivity in future proceedings, a plea now under consideration by the Commission as it continues its high-profile inquiry.
The late musician’s father says he still has one burning question: Who commissioned the hit on his son?
Forbes says the moment has been a long time coming, but the fight for answers is far from over. – Agencies
