An agent from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) will head an investigating team into the weekend’s escape from Pretoria’s C-Max prison, Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour said on Wednesday.
Balfour was back at what is considered one of South Africa’s most secure prisons, from where awaiting-trial prisoner Annanias Mathe escaped on Saturday night.
”This thing needs to be dealt with, we need a proper investigation,” he said before announcing that an NIA agent assisted by a colleague, two senior police officers and two correctional-services officials will investigate the escape.
Mathe, a Mozambican national, faced 51 charges, including murder, attempted murder, rape, hijacking and armed robbery.
”I’m just amazed how one can make it through all of that on one’s own without being seen,” Balfour said about security measures at the prison.
Initial reports said it appeared that the ”Houdini” stripped and covered his entire body with petroleum jelly to climb out of a window measuring 20cm by 60cm.
The director of communications at the Department of Correctional Services, Bheki Manzini, said earlier in the week that Mathe was detained in the A6 section, which houses hardened criminals who are regarded as escape risks.
”It is alleged Mathe uncuffed himself, broke through a number of small windows and forced himself out on to the centre’s roof — an escape carried out with military precision.”
The escape was noticed by an official who came in for night shift.
Mathe apparently broke two steel bars from his bed, which he wedged on either side of the window to help him slide his shoulders through.
He apparently took another steel pipe from his bed and made a hook. He then tied his clothes and bed linen to it and used that to slide out of the cell down the firewall.
Halfway down, Mathe used some of the grime he had collected on his way down the wall to write a note to prison officials saying: ”Fuck you.”
This was not his first escape from custody.
Manzini said: ”In April 2005 he escaped while in police custody. At the time he was housed next to the staff office to monitor him closely.”
It initially took a task team nine months to arrest Mathe. Captain Arnold Boonstra, who formed part of this team, described the man as ”a scrawny little guy”.
”It took my colleague and I — we’re both over six feet and weigh more than 140kg — nearly 15 minutes to apprehend and subdue him. He has extensive military training, which we believe enabled him to escape in the manner he did,” said Boonstra
The investigators will look into the possibility that Mathe had help from the inside.
As part of the investigation they will interview inmates at C-Max as well as correctional-service officials.
”I have given them the right to use polygraph testing,” Balfour said.
The team was due to compile an interim report, which would be handed to Balfour in just over a week, on December 4.
They are also expected to make recommendations on how future escapes could be prevented.
A full report was expected by the end of January, but Balfour expressed the hope that it would be completed before the end of December.
He also hoped the Mathe would have been re-arrested by that time. — Sapa