Prison catching up with dagga warder

DESPITE being caught trying to smuggle more than two tons of dagga into a prison 18 years ago, warder Henoch Arendse has still not been locked up.

But his days of freedom are numbered, because the High Court in Cape Town has thrown out another of his attempts to avoid imprisonment.

This week, Judge Lee Bozalek ordered that Wynberg’s chief magistrate consider issuing an arrest warrant for Arendse, 51, who was convicted of drug dealing in 2000 after trying to sneak the dagga into Pollsmoor prison in Cape Town.

The judge had harsh words for Arendse — and for the Department of Justice, which had only ordered the warder to report for his sentence in January last year. Bozalek also asked the Cape Law Society to investigate Arendse’s attorney, William Booth.

The saga began in July 1998, when Arendse was found with 2 109kg of cannabis. He was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

A 2005 appeal in the High Court in Cape Town failed, and 10 years ago the appeal court also turned down Arendse — who is still working as a warder. He ignored last year’s notice that he start his sentence, and claimed that the delay in his case amounted to “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment. Arendse also said he paid Booth for a Constitutional Court appeal.

Bozalek said Booth appeared to have done nothing to appeal to the Constitutional Court — but the attorney’s associate had testified that Arendse had been “wholly unco-operative” and had not paid the full amount required. — Staff Reporter