Joe Gqabi Ferociously Murdered
In the evening of 31 July 1981, while driving out of his residence in Eves Crescent, in Salisbury’s (now Harare) Ashdown Park suburb, in Zimbabwe, the African National Congress’s (ANC) Chief Representative to Zimbabwe, Joe Gqabi was shot dead by allegedly three assailants. The assailants opened fire at close range into the head and body of Gqabi who died immediately.
This was an early action by D40, the ex-Rhodesian outfit that was a direct forerunner to the apartheid Special Forces Death Squad, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB). The murderer was Graham “Gray” Branfield, a former Deputy Inspector of Police with Bulawayo’s Special Branch. Reconnaissance for the murder was done by a local spy ring recruited on behalf of the apartheid government by two ex-Rhodesians, one of whom worked for South Africa’s intelligence services, the other for the Special Forces.
When Joe Gqabi’s Secretary arrived at the house the following morning, at 00:15, there were eighteen spent cartridges on the driveway and a .22-calibre Beretta pistol, fitted with a silencer, was near his body in the car.
“Gray” Branfield, the secret agent who gunned down Gqabi was allegedly part of the planning of “Operation Lebanta”, the 1982 attack on ANC targets in Maseru that were designed to kill Chris Hani. Years later, Branfield was alleged to have been connected to the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) raid in Gaborone in 1985. He later d
