Gayton McKenzie. Photo by Delwyn Verasamy, M&G
Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie has claimed responsibility for Jermaine Prim — the convicted gangster accused of heading a Mercedes-Benz car theft syndicate from his jail cell — suddenly being moved to a maximum security prison.
On Thursday, it emerged in the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court, sitting in Palm Ridge, that Prim was moved from Johannesburg Correctional Centre to Kgosi Mampuru prison in Tshwane because of alleged death threats the gangster made to residents in Eldorado Park, Johannesburg.
In a video McKenzie recorded, he claimed to have orchestrated Prim’s move because some of the people the convict allegedly threatened to kill were “women members of the Patriotic Alliance”.
State prosecutor Richard Chabalala told the court on Thursday that Prim was still involved in gang activities in Eldorado Park and that a number of complaints had been received from residents.
Chabalala added that Patrick Mashibini, Gauteng’s correctional services head, listened to the complaints and decided to transfer Prim to Tshwane “because of what he [Prim] does when he is at Johannesburg Central”.
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Last week, the Mail & Guardian reported that Prim was moved from the awaiting trial to the sentenced inmates section of Johannesburg Central, popularly known as Sun City prison, because of his “bad behaviour” of allegedly orchestrating the theft of luxury vehicles from his cell.
Prim is accused of scouring social media sites for Mercedes-Benz vehicle owners complaining about bad services from the car manufacturer. He allegedly clones Mercedes-Benz South Africa’s number to call the owners and arrange for them to hand over their vehicles.
The state alleges that, from January 2018, Prim pretended to be a senior Mercedes-Benz South Africa official, and would arrange to pick up the cars from disgruntled owners under the pretext that he was going to offer them a quality service.
Prim’s multiple convictions
On Thursday, Chabalala brought to court two case dockets opened against Prim for alleged intimidation.
“As a result of these complaints, the correctional services department searched the cell where Mr Prim was held and found the cellphone used [by Prim] to instigate gang activities in Eldorado Park,” Chabalala told the magistrate, Emmanuel Magampa.
Chabalala said that after Prim was arrested in 2016 for parole violations for his car theft convictions dating back to 2012, he was moved to maximum security prisons in KwaZulu-Natal and Free State to deter him from committing more crimes in custody. He has been incarcerated since 2016.
In 2018, Prim was convicted of impersonating former National Prosecuting Authority head Shaun Abrahams using phone cloning technology. Prim would call prosecutors in another of his car theft court cases and tell them to drop the charges. He was fined for fraud.
Prim’s lawyer, Joe Strauss, told the court on Thursday that the correctional service department violated a December 2019 Johannesburg high court judgement that Prim should be detained at Kgosi Mampuru’s medium section, instead of the maximum security section, known as C-Max, where Prim is currently being held.
Strauss added that Prim should be transferred back to Johannesburg Central, which has an awaiting-trial inmate section, and that Kgosi Mampuru’s C-Max only catered for violent criminals.
Jermaine Prim
But Chabalala said that he had already told Strauss that should he want his client to return to Johannesburg, he had to file a high court application.
Strauss acknowledged this, but added that “it was in bad faith” that Prim was detained in C-Max, when the December 2019 order ruled that he should be held in the medium section because he is now an awaiting-trial inmate, having completed his sentence last year.
“I further note that it is not within this court’s powers to make an order as per the court order from the high court. However, your worship, even the provincial commissioner of correctional service must follow the rules and court orders,” Strauss said.
“This accused is appearing in Palm Ridge court, which falls in the jurisdiction of the Johannesburg correctional service. And, for that reason, I implore your worship to make an order, in terms of the J7 form, for the accused to be detained in Johannesburg central.”
The J7 is a form signed by a presiding officer authorising the correctional service department to detain an accused at a specific facility until their next court appearance.
Despite Strauss’s attempts, the magistrate ordered that Prim must be kept in Kgosi Mampuru, but moved out of C-Max to the medium section, in line with the December 2019 court order.
Gayton McKenzie involvement
In several voice messages that have been circulating since 1 November, when the M&G first published the current court case against Prim, his mother, Bridgitte Prim, accused the newspaper of being paid by McKenzie and Patriotic Alliance deputy president Kenny Kunene to run a “smear campaign” targeting her son.
“I would like to bring to the attention of the public that Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene have paid Mr Koko [the M&G journalist] to write an article … only due to the fact that my son, Jermaine Prim, was a whistleblower and had exposed the Patriotic Alliance on tender fraud and bullying,” Bridgitte Prim said.
Responding to the voice messages, McKenzie said in the recorded video that he was behind the raid of Prim’s Sun City prison cell, where a cell phone was found that was apparently used by the gangster to run his alleged theft syndicate, as well as the alleged intimidation of Eldorado Park residents.
“I’m the leader of the PA. Do you think I can fold my arms when women of the PA can be sworn at every day; their nude pictures must be all over the internet — they are being told how they are going to be killed?” McKenzie asked.
Responding to the M&G, McKenzie said he had been told about the “malicious rumour” that he paid the newspaper to smear Prim and called it “absolute nonsense”.
Prim will return to court on 29 November, when his bail application is expected to continue.
His trial for the alleged Mercedes-Benz theft scam — with his co-accused Clayton Bouwers and Robert Sass — is expected to begin on 6 March.
Bouwers, who is remanded in custody, and Sass, who is out on bail, are accused of being Prim’s runners on the outside, with the state claiming the two would wear Mercedes-Benz attire when they allegedly would fetch the vehicles from the owners.
21/11/2022: The headline of this article has been changed for clarity. The previous version was ambiguous in its description of Gayton McKenzie’s involvement in the case in question.
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