Before he died in a hail of police bullets, kwaMaphumulo taxi boss Bongani Mkhize made one of the most startling interventions in the annals of South African law.

He secured a High Court interdict to forbid the police from killing him.

They killed him anyway - less than three months after the restraining order was granted.

"It is arrest that concerns me, causes me to fear for my life... I verily believe my life is in danger from members of the South African Police," Mkhize wrote in his application to the High Court.

This was after six other taxi men had already been killed by police investigating the murder of one of their colleagues, Superintendent Zethembe Chonco.

The High Court order did Mkhize little good. He died in a hail of police bullets in broad daylight in Durban's Umgeni Road on February 3 this year. In the police version, Mkhize opened fire on arresting officers and was killed as they shot back.

It was not detectives seeking suspects in the Chonco murder case who killed Mkhize, but a heavily armed contingent from the National Intervention Unit - the SAPS's premier specialised Swat team.

Now, eight months after the killing, police have yet to disclose any details of their investigations into the shooting.

At the time, they indicated that Mkhize was sought in connection with another murder, that of a traditional leader close to both the police and the taxi industry, Inkosi Mbongeleni Zondi.

They have since confirmed that the murder docket on Chonco has been closed after the death of all wanted suspects in the case.

But the Mkhize killing is not going away. The dead taxi boss's family, their lawyer, Petrus Coetzee, and an independent forensic ballistic expert, Jacobus Steyl, are accusing both the police and the Independent Complaints Directorate - which, in terms of its mandate, is tasked with scrutinising all deaths resulting from police actions - of not properly investigating the shooting of Mkhize, or the shooting of his taxi association colleagues.

Coetzee said the Mkhize family suspect a cover-up.

KwaZulu-Natal's general manager of public transport, Advocate Simo Chamane, has also expressed concern, saying: "All we've got are reports from police that these suspects were killed either trying to fight back with the police or trying to go for their guns. We never did get to the bottom of who was behind Chonco's murder."

In his application for High Court protection in October last year, Mkhize claimed he had received inside information that he was suspected of having orchestrated Chonco's murder, and was the last surviving person on a list of suspects police had decided to eliminate.

Chonco, station commissioner of Kranskop police station, had been appointed to head investigations into violence related to taxi route disputes - including a string of murders arising out of disputes between Mkhize's KwaMaphumulo Taxi Association and the rival Stanger Taxi Association.

Chonco was ambushed on August 27 last year while travelling between Kranskop and Stanger, transporting suspects to court.

In the wake of the Chonco killing, members of kwaMaphumulo Taxi Association were targeted as suspects.

"One by one they die - thugs pay the price for cop's murder," read the headlines in a Daily Sun article dated October 18 last year and included in Mhkize's High Court application. "When a top cop (Chonco) was shot dead in an ambush, his angry colleagues vowed to avenge his death. And this is what's happening. Today the seventh suspect in the murder lies dead, riddled with bullets."

The Daily Sun went on to quote unnamed police sources as saying that an eighth suspect - a taxi boss - was on the run, planning to leave the country "rather than being bust".

Mkhize said he learned that he was on a list of suspects in the Chonco murder case from an associate, Moses Dlamini, who was interrogated and allegedly severely assaulted by police a day after Chonco's murder. "Of all the people whose names are mentioned on the list of suspects, I am the only one who remains alive," said Mkhize.

In opposing the granting of the interdict, SAPS provincial commissioner Jan Booysen said Mkhize was not a suspect in the Chonco murder case, and scotched Mkhize's hit-list fears. These, Booysen countered, were based on "nothing more than innuendo, hearsay, unconfirmed rumour and generalised unconfirmed reports".

"There is no plan to kill the applicant," Booysen maintained.

But Mkhize was far from reassured. He went on to allege the existence of a list of Chonco murder suspects was also confirmed in a meeting with then KwaZulu-Natal MEC for community safety liaison, Bheki Cele, now national police commissioner.

This meeting was called after five members of the kwaMaphumulo Taxi Association had already died at the hands of police investigating Chonco's murder.

In his affidavit opposing Mkhize's application for a protection order, Cele denied confirming the existence of a list of Chonco murder suspects, but never disputed warning Mkhize and two colleagues that there was "a war out there" and that "when the waters are muddy, crocodiles will hunt".

Rather than be hunted, Mkhize insisted in his High Court application: "I have offered to hand myself over... I am prepared to be interrogated in the presence of my legal representatives and to answer any questions posed to me."

He never had a chance to answer questions - on February 3 this year, Mkhize lay slumped dead, riddled with bullets from head to toe, in a car near Connaught Bridge on Durban's Umgeni Road.

Besides stating that Mkhize had been "positively linked" to Inkosi Mkhize's murder the previous week, police have declined to answer queries about how a heavily armed National Intervention Unit task team came to be trailing Mkhize on the day.

"The NIU lawfully defended themselves when attacked by the deceased," said Director Phindile Radebe.

No details of subsequent police investigations into the incident have been provided by police.

Coetzee, who has filed a notice of intention to sue police for damages on behalf of the Mkhize family, suspects that neither police nor the ICD interviewed bystanders or other drivers who witnessed the incident.