Johannesburg - “I knew him from the Czech Republic, but he wasn’t such a big shot there, not like the big psychopath he became in South Africa.”
This is what a former associate of Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir had to say about him in an affidavit read on Tuesday in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court.
Police investigators looking into the alleged kingpin’s activities travelled to the Czech Republic last week to meet with Miloslav Potiska, a State witness in Krejcir’s upcoming trial for the murder of alleged drug dealer Sam Issa.
Krejcir, Siboniso Miya, Nkanyiso Mafunda, Borislav Grigorov and Simphiwe Memela are accused of murdering Issa, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2013 that saw his Audi Q7 riddled with bullets.
Issa, believed to be a major drug dealer in Joburg at the time, was linked to Krejcir and last seen at the Czech businessman’s home the night before his death.
On Tuesday at Krejcir and Grigorov’s long-running bail application in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court, prosecutor Lawrence Gcaba presented the recently made affidavit from Potiska in a bid to show that Krejcir remains a danger to society.
“I left South Africa because I could see that Krejcir was getting involved in so much criminal activity that, sooner or later, I would be dragged into it and even possibly murdered, like so many of his other ‘associates’,” Potiska’s affidavit said.
“Krejcir would make many deals with people but would not give them their money back, and would threaten to kill them or even have them killed. There are many people who he wanted to kill in South Africa; he told me who they are. Some of them are already dead.”
However, Krejcir’s lawyer, Annelene van den Heever, argued that Potiska’s affidavit was constructed outside the country’s borders, and to be valid would have to have been deposed at the South African consular general’s office in Prague.
She argued it wasn’t relevant to the bail application, but pointed out that it failed to address her client’s claims that the real reason Potiska left the country was because he was a drug addict.
She insisted that her client stood by his testimony that he had never given any instructions to Potiska, and that the State had failed to disprove any of Krejcir’s statements.
Van den Heever also said Potiska’s statement was vague about Krejcir’s alleged orders, not mentioning a time or place where such instructions to kill Issa were allegedly given.
Judgment in the application is expected on October 16.
The Star