Prison warders warned to watch their backs

Numbers gangs ‘behind knife attack’

PRISON warders across the province have been warned to watch their backs amid fears that more will be targeted, after nearly 30 armed gangsters attacked staff in a Paarl jail.

The attack, possibly stemming from a gang ritual, played out in the Drakenstein Correctional Centre, which houses one of the Western Cape’s most notorious gang bosses, George “Geweld” Thomas.

Geweld, who is at the centre of the biggest gangster trial the Western Cape High Court has yet heard, in which 12 people linked to it were murdered within three years, is alleged to be a head of the 28s gang.

Possible links between him and the incident will be investigated.

In the attack on Thursday, 27 members from the 26s, 27s and 28s gangs turned on a group of 10 warders. The gangsters were armed with knives and sharp objects, and wounded nine of the warders.

Yesterday regional Correctional Services commissioner Delekile Klaas said that because of the attack, warders at the province’s 32 jails had been advised to be on high alert: “There will be more cell searches, and officials have been told not to go into cells alone and without the proper back-up. They will also limit the activities of visitors,” he said.

Klaas emphasised that while stricter security measures had been implemented, prisons were “not in a state of crisis”.

The attack on the warders follows the death of an inmate at Brandvlei Prison in Worcester earlier this month.

On January 4 prisoner Lubabalo Mzamo hit a warder with a sock containing a padlock – part of a suspected gang ritual. As officers tried to restrain Mzamo he sustained head injuries and died 10 days later in hospital. It was not yet clear if the two incidents were linked, Klaas said, but that this possibility was being probed.

He added that detectives from Operation Combat, the provincial police’s project aimed at clamping down on gangsterism and related crimes, were taking statements from the 27 gangsters. Some of the gangsters would be transferred to other jails.

Klaas said cases of attempted murder had been opened. It was probable that the gangsters would be rearrested and eventually go through court proceedings, which could end in convictions and sentencing.

Yesterday Klaas said the wounded warders had been discharged from hospital, and were receiving trauma counselling.

In reply to a Weekend Argus request to interview the warders, Klaas said this could not be permitted because of the strong links between the jailed gangsters and those on the streets, which could jeopardise the warders’ safety and that of their families.

He confirmed that as part of the probe into the attack, Thomas’s possible involvement would be investigated.

“This link will be checked,” Klaas said. He pointed out that Thomas was held in the maximum security section of the prison, while the attack happened in the medium section.

Thomas’s advocate, Janos Mihalik, told Weekend Argus yesterday that Thomas had been held in a single cell for four years.

He said attacks in the prison were not uncommon because gangsters had to complete rituals, including such attacks, which ensured them a higher ranking within a gang.

Yesterday Major General Jeremy Vearey, who heads Operation Combat, confirmed that his team was probing Thursday’s attack.

He said Operation Combat included investigating gangsters on the streets and in prison, and the links between them.

Previously, the murder of a Worcester Prison inmate, tortured to death in August 2013, had led police to uncovering a network of street and jailed gangsters who were working together.

In April last year Mark Petersen, 32, an alleged gang leader linked to the Junior Cisco Yakkies, was arrested in Worcester as part of the investigation into the killing at the prison there the previous year.

Sixteen other suspects in the Worcester Prison were linked to the case.