A thwarted escape attempt by three inmates appears to have been behind the deaths of two officials and two prisoners at Pretoria’s C-Max jail on Sunday, the Department of Correctional Services said on Monday.
”Preliminary investigations seem to implicate three prisoners. It appears that they shot themselves when they realised their plan was not going to work,” said departmental spokesperson Bheki Manzini.
Two of the three were among those killed. But Manzini could not immediately provide details on the condition or whereabouts of the third inmate.
Initial reports indicated that a prisoner had obtained a firearm and used it to kill another inmate, prison head Sam Gomba and a warder before turning the gun on himself.
The names of the two dead inmates will be released once their next-of-kin had been informed — probably by the day’s end.
One officer died in hospital, and the other three men inside the prison.
Exactly what happened remained unclear on Monday, with Manzini saying details will only emerge as the investigation proceeds.
He could not say how the firearm/s used had been obtained.
Police and a special departmental investigation team were putting the pieces together on Monday morning, as management addressed staff on the aftermath.
Manzini said staff were receiving individual counselling.
He confirmed that two men in civilian clothes, apprehended in the prison’s parking area on Sunday afternoon, were being questioned by police.
The extent of their alleged involvement, however, was unclear.
C-Max is a maximum-security facility designed specifically to hold violent and disruptive prisoners classified as dangerous. Its residents include apartheid-era murderer Eugene de Kock, serial killer and rapist Moses Sithole, and the alleged rightwingers charged with plotting to overthrow the government in the Boeremag treason trial.
According to unconfirmed accounts of Sunday’s events, a visitor managed to smuggle a firearm into the prison in the morning.
South African Prisoners’ Organisation for Human Rights (Sapohr) president Golden Miles Bhudu, who was visiting friends and members in the facility, said a public announcement was made shortly before 10am that a hostage situation was under way.
An hour later, he said, he overheard a warder telling someone that a woman visitor had smuggled a firearm into C-Max and handed it to a prisoner. There was some shooting, and two warders were apparently held hostage, Bhudu said he heard.
But Manzini would not be drawn into what he termed mere speculation.
”We invite those people who claim to have information on what happened to get in contact with the investigating team,” he said on Monday.
He stressed: ”As much as there was a security breach … there were no escapes.”
There have been no escapes from C-Max since its establishment, he added.
Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour is due to meet family members of the deceased and visit the institution — probably on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the department received a hoax call earlier on Monday about another hostage drama.
”We investigated, and there was no such thing,” Manzini said.
Sapohr called for a probe into weapons smuggling in jails.
”Tighter security measures have to be in place,” the organisation said in a statement on Monday.
”It is evidently clear that assistance from an official was rendered [in obtaining the firearm],” Sapohr claimed.
The organisation expressed concern about ”growing levels of firearm smuggling between warders and prisoners”.
For its part, the Inkatha Freedom Party expressed outrage and demanded that officials suspected of negligence or involvement be suspended without fail.
”It is clear that there was some form of corruption involved,” it said in a statement. ”It is unacceptable that some officials had to pay with their lives because of the negligence and corruption of other officials.” — Sapa
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