Former police minister Bheki Cele sent shockwaves through social media and the legal community on Thursday when he claimed that investigators believed Anele Tembe, the late fiancée of rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes, was murdered — not that she took her own life.
Cele made the remarks during his appearance before Parliament’s ad hoc committee probing corruption and political interference in the criminal justice system.
In an exchange with Action Society’s Ian Cameron, Cele alleged that the South African Police Service (SAPS) had “done the work” in the Tembe investigation and concluded that it was a murder case.
“Police did the investigation and they believed that the daughter was murdered,” Cele said.
“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.’”
Cele added that he personally raised the matter with President Cyril Ramaphosa after prosecutors allegedly refused to issue the necessary certificate to allow for a private prosecution.
“I went to the president personally,” Cele told MPs.
“I said, ‘Mr President, your ministry of police is going to do something funny — it’s going to support the private prosecution.’ The prosecutor refused to give a certificate, so you are stuck in the middle.”
Cele said a magistrate presiding over the current inquest into Tembe’s death was also questioning why the case had not been enrolled for prosecution, suggesting that “it was an obvious case.”
His statements come as public scrutiny around the Anele Tembe inquest intensifies. The 22-year-old died in April 2021 after falling from the 10th floor of Cape Town’s Pepperclub Hotel, following what reports described as a heated argument with her fiancé.
The case has been marred by delays and allegations of interference between the police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
According to a 2024 News24 report, Anele Tembe’s family have consistently maintained that she did not take her own life, insisting that she was pushed. Family spokesperson Manqoba Zungu said through the family’s legal team that “they believed Anele did not commit suicide but was pushed” .
Her father, businessman Moses Tembe, has repeatedly expressed frustration with the slow pace of the case, telling the SABC earlier that year that the family “would never find closure without Kiernan answering for what happened.”
He said the inquest “would not be complete” until the rapper — who was murdered in Durban in February 2023 — could “tell us exactly what happened on that day.”
Thursday’s comments by Cele have reignited public debate about whether justice was derailed by political or prosecutorial interference.
Cele’s remarks also risk deepening tensions between the former police minister and the NPA, which has not yet commented on his statement.
As the inquest continues, all eyes are on the magistrate overseeing the matter — and on whether these latest revelations could force a long-overdue reckoning in one of South Africa’s most polarising celebrity deaths.
