South African authorities have charged seven special forces soldiers and one military police officer with the August 2023 murder of Lieutenant Colonel Frans Mathipa, an elite Hawks unit detective who was shot dead while investigating the alleged abduction of an Ethiopian man, Abdella Abadigga, by the military. The BBC has obtained hundreds of pages of secret police and court documents indicating that a vehicle registered to a front company for South Africa's special forces trailed Mathipa moments before his killing, and that a soldier linked to the suspected abduction was also identified near the murder scene. The case has raised serious alarm in South Africa (one of the continent's most established democracies) about military overreach, particularly as three of the accused have defied a court order revoking their bail, continue to serve in the special forces, and one has since been promoted — casting doubt on whether the trial will ever proceed.