Johannesburg - If Radovan Krejcir loses before the Refugee Appeal Board, he will have to return to the Czech Republic, where he has been found guilty of four different crimes that could see him spend up to 31 years in prison.
This is according to a preservation order that Sars has filed in the Pretoria High Court which was served on Krejcir, his family and business partners.
The papers give background information on Krejcir, stating he was born in the Czech Republic on November 4, 1968. He graduated from the faculty of economics at the University Ostrava as an engineer.
Aside from the numerous businesses he has been linked to in South Africa, the papers say he holds 98.86 percent of shares in a company registered in the Czech Republic, DKR Invest Praha; 98.8 percent of the issued shares in the Czech company TT Real Services; and 52.44 percent of the issued shares in the Czech company K plus G INVEST. He is also a shareholder in the company DKR (Pty) Ltd, which is registered in the Seychelles.
The court documents claim that, in 1996, Krejcir acquired the possession and control of certain shares that he was contractually obliged to return to a company called Frymis. He failed to return the shares, causing damage worth about 75 million Czech koruna (R37m).
In 2009, he was convicted in the Czech Republic on a charge of fraud relating to the shares and sentenced to six-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, which was reduced on appeal in August 2010 to six years’ imprisonment.
In a second case, Krejcir was alleged to have been one of the organisers of a case of customs duty evasion by a fuel importer registered in the Czech Republic.
On December 3 last year, he was found guilty of involvement and sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment and fined 3 million Czech koruna.
In the third case, Krejcir was charged in the municipal court in Prague with allegedly having ordered and organised the abduction of a businessman, Jakub Konecný, who was forced to sign blank promissory notes, empty sheets of paper and tax documents in Krejcir’s presence. He was convicted and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for blackmail and depriving a person of his liberty.
The verdict was overturned on appeal and the matter remitted to the lower court. In 2009, the municipal court reclassified the crime as attempted blackmail and imposed a sentence of six-and-a-half years’ jail.
In the fourth case, in September 2003, Krejcir was arrested and spent one year in custody in connection with a charge of loan fraud. His accomplices were suspected of stripping a company known as Technology Leasing of its assets.
On January 3, 2011, the municipal court in Prague convicted Krejcir for breach of trust and imposed a sentence of eight years’ imprisonment.
The Sars papers state that Krejcir escaped from custody in the Czech Republic in 2005 and fled via Poland, Ukraine, Turkey and Dubai and then to the Seychelles, where he acquired citizenship in 2006 and relinquished his Czech citizenship.
In June 2005, a Czech Republic court issued an international arrest warrant for Krejcir. In January 2006, the authorities made a request to the Seychelles for his extradition.
Krejcir left the Indian Ocean island in early 2007 before a decision on the extradition application had been made.
Sars claims that in March 2007, the Czech Liaison Service informed the South African authorities that Krejcir was scheduled to enter South Africa on April 21 that year.
They asked the authorities to arrest him, in terms of an Interpol red notice, so he could be extradited to the Czech Republic.
He arrived in South Africa using a passport under the name of Egbert Juls Savy.
He was arrested by the police on arrival and appeared in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court. He denied being Radovan Krejcir and refused to have his fingerprints taken.
Krejcir then applied for refugee status and was released from prison on June 4, 2007.
He was arrested in Bedfordview on Friday.
He is due back in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court on December 9 for his extradition case.
Magistrate William Schutte will assess the progress made in Krejcir’s bid for asylum, which is with the Refugee Appeal Board.
The Star