Johannesburg - Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir has become the first-ever prisoner to be sent to the country’s most secure prison - C-Max in Kokstad, KwaZulu-Natal - before even being sentenced.
He spent Christmas and New Year in it and will remain there until further notice.
The 1 400-inmate institution, also known as Ebongweni Closed Maximum Security Prison, is home to South Africa’s most hardened criminals, in particular escape artists like the notorious Ananias Mathe, who memorably escaped from the “inescapable” Pretoria C-Max after smearing himself with petroleum jelly.
The KZN super maximum prison is also home to Sibusiso ”Tilili” Mzimela, who has escaped from prison nine times. He was jailed for 89 years in prison in 2011.
Ebongweni is run off an integrated system that includes pneumatic sliding doors, an electrified security fence with detection alarm systems and CCTV cameras throughout.
Access control is a combination of digital and biometric.
As in other C-Max prisons, inmates are kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day.
Ebongweni is a high risk maximum security facility.
There is a special national panel convened to decide which convicts should be sent there.
Their recommendations have to be approved by the Chief Deputy Commissioner, Corrections.
Sources told The Star that members of the SAPS’s elite task force escorted Krejcir to KZN in an armed convoy, monitored overhead by a police helicopter after senior officers got wind of an imminent bid to spring him from Zonderwater Prison where he had been held.
“Krejcir intended to escape during the festive season. Kokstad was the last resort. Security around him had to be beefed up to ensure he did not get a slightest chance to escape. That is why he was moved to that prison because he cannot escape from there. Ananias Mathe tried but he was not successful.”
In August the high court in Joburg convicted Krejcir of attempted murder, kidnapping and dealing in drugs.
These related to the kidnapping and torture of Bhekithemba Lukhele, whose brother, Bhekisizwe Doctor Nkosi, had stolen and fled with a large supply of drugs worth millions of rand belonging to Krejcir.
The drugs were originally set to be sold in Australia.
Krejcir will be sentenced next month in Joburg.
He still faces several charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, among a litany of lesser charges.
A senior official from the Department of Correctional Services confirmed Krejcir had been the first prisoner to be moved to the “ultra maximum prison” in Kokstad before being sentenced.
The official said the reason that Krejcir was sent there was because the Pretoria C-Max (Closed Maximum Security Unit) was under renovation.
In October last year, Correctional Services claimed it had foiled a plot by Krejcir to escape from Zonderwater prison near Cullinan, after a tip-off from Krejcir’s nemesis and security consultant Paul O’Sullivan. Warders confiscated a firearm and several rounds of ammunition from his cell during a raid. They also found a stun gun, pepper-spray gun, screwdriver, a knife, 10 cellphones, SIM cards and memory sticks.
Officials also confiscated Krejcir’s, diary which apparently contained pertinent details about the escape bid, including how he would by smuggled in a Mercedes-Benz to Swaziland where he would hole up at the Royal Swazi Sun before being whisked to neighbouring Mozambique, where a charted aircraft would take him to Argentina and freedom.
Efforts to get a comment from Correctional Services spokesman Manelisi Wolela proved fruitless.
His long walk to prison
Radovan Krejcir arrived in South Africa in 2007, using a fake passport, after he evaded a police raid on his Czech villa in 2005.
He was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport on an Interpol red notice while travelling with a Seychelles passport, which the authorities later claimed was fake.
However, a Czech application for his extradition was unsuccessful and he made South Africa his home.
The Czech fugitive was closely linked to security boss Cyril Beeka and strip club boss Lolly Jackson, both of whom ended up being murdered. Their killers are still at large.
Police claim Krejcir is a key figure in the South African criminal underworld, which Krejcir denies.has resolutely denied
His two luxury homes, worth millions, were seized by the Asset Forfeiture Unit and auctioned last year to defray the money he owes the South African Revenue Service.
The Star
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