- Bheki Cele, the former Police Minister, made a significant revelation about the unfortunate demise of Anele Tembe
- Anele Tembe tragically fell from the 10th floor of a hotel in Cape Town in 2021, reportedly while with her partner, Kiernan ‘AKA’ Forbes
- During his testimony to the Ad Hoc Committee, Cele alleged that law enforcement was treating the case as a murder inquiry
Bheki Cele provided unsettling testimony to the Ad Hoc Committee in Parliament regarding the death of Anele ‘Neli’ Tembe.
Tembe was the daughter of a prominent businessman from Durban and was engaged to the late rapper Kiernan ‘AKA’ Forbes. She tragically died in 2021 following a fall from the 10th floor of Cape Town’s Pepperclub Hotel.
In his remarks made on 23 October 2025 in the Western Cape, Cele indicated that authorities were exploring the possibility of murder in the investigation of her death.
Cele’s remarks on the inquiry into Anele Tembe’s death
Cele claimed during his testimony that investigators had not ruled out murder, despite AKA’s assertion that she took her own life by jumping.
Bheki Cele shared, “I’m sure you’ll hear one day that there is an inquest in the death of Moses Tembe’s daughter, honourable member, police did the investigation and they believed that that daughter was murdered.”
Moses Tembe, Anele’s father, has consistently maintained that his daughter did not end her own life.
Cele recounted his conversation with the President regarding the case:
“I went to the president. I said: ‘Mr President, your minister of police is going to do something funny. He’s going to support the private prosecution. And the prosecutor refused to give a certificate. So you can’t prosecute, you can’t give a certificate. So you’re stuck in the middle. But now I know that in that inquest, the magistrate who is there now is asking the question, why this thing was not enroled? Because it’s an obvious case. You should ask the prosecutor who did not enrol it in the Western Cape.”
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AKA’s perspective on Anele’s death
In an interview with journalist Thembekile Mrototo on The Bar Group’s YouTube channel, AKA shared his account of the events leading to Anele’s death.
“We had been having a particularly difficult week in our relationship, lots of arguments and disagreements. We sat down, and we spoke, and we started disagreeing again, and things got heated. When things took a turn, I decided that I should remove myself from the situation. I decided that I would book myself into another room and hopefully things will simmer down. I left the room but went back because I had taken her phone and we argued and then Anele had kind of threatened to kill herself, to jump off the balcony”, he said.
