Cape Town — One year has passed since the death of Gavin Watson who died in a car accident at OR International Airport in Johannesburg. The family of the former Bosasa chief operating officer said at the time that foul play could not be ruled out as the cause of the crash.

Conversely, an eyewitness to the accident claimed that Watson's death was a suicide. "It is very sketchy, this thing happened in front of me ... Some bumpers were flying up, and to me it was someone who wanted to commit suicide. I don't believe in some other [conspiracy] theories," said a man identifying himself as Mphahlele who spoke to PowerFM.

More recently, Watson's family welcomed a ruling by the Johannesburg High Court that an auction held at African Global Holdings, formerly known as Bosasa, was unlawful, EWN reports.

Liquidators assigned to operate the company were said to have acted unlawfully during their attempt to auction off its assets in 2019. The sale of assets, as determined by acting judge DP de Villiers, was not legal due to the lack of authorisation by the company's board of directors.

Watson, who had alleged ties to state capture, was secretly recorded in 2015 boasting about how he would lobby then-president Jacob Zuma to appoint a National Director of Public Prosecutions who would "protect" high-level officials at the National Prosecuting Authority. His death came ahead of a scheduled appearance at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into state capture, where he was expected to testify on how he failed to comply with tax obligations and sought to hide assets from the South African Revenue Service.