Inside the SA prison no one has ever escaped from

02 April 2015 - 12:04 By Matthew Savides
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No one has escaped from South Africa's most secure prison, C-Max in Kokstad, an eerie world of solid barriers, security cameras and handcuffed prisoners in single cells. The Sunday Times goes inside.

The corridors are deadly quiet, apart from the footsteps of warders and the occasional sound of a prisoner talking, moaning or even grumbling in his cell.

In this eerie silence, South Africa's own Houdini - serial escape artist Ananias Mathe - got to work.

Using pieces of metal taken from his cell door, he chipped away at the wall. Before the guards did their nightly inspection, he used a home-made paste to cover up his handiwork. It is a similar colour to the off-white paint, so the guards did not notice.

Day after day, Mathe, 38, chipped away at the wall, trying to make a hole.

This continued until, one day, a guard noticed what he was up to. Mathe was immediately moved to the cell next door, and his brazen bid for freedom - in the form of a 33cm cut in the wall - was brought to an abrupt end.

But even if Mathe had escaped from his cell, he would have found himself inside that quiet corridor, and into the waiting arms of warders, who would have picked him up on one of the hundreds of CCTV cameras installed across the prison.

This is the reality of the eBongweni C-Max Prison in Kokstad. There is, quite simply, no getting out.

Even if Mathe had slipped past those guards and cameras undetected, he would have been confronted with about a dozen electronic gates and doors that are opened and closed from a central command centre in the bowels of the building.

Had he managed to get through and outside the building itself, he would have had to sneak past other guards and over three barbed wire fences.

Then, and only then, would he have caught a first glimpse of freedom - but he would still have had to make his way out of the guarded and fenced prison ground itself before truly tasting freedom.

The Sunday Times was taken on a tour of the "super-maximum security" prison, which is home to 1203 of South Africa's most dangerous and violent prisoners.

The prison, officials said this week, was so escape-proof that Mathe's breakout bid in September 2013 was the only attempt in the facility's 13-year history.

"eBongweni is the symbol of no escape - not only in KwaZulu-Natal but across the country," said regional commissioner Mnikelwa Nxele.

 

 

The C-Max in Kokstad - which was built in 2002 at a cost of R450-million - is home not only to South Africa's most violent criminals, but also those considered too problematic to be at other correctional centres.

"Some of the offenders are here simply because of the violent nature and seriousness of their crimes. But some are brought here because they have shown behavioural problems," said Nxele.

Mathe was one of those, having escaped from two maximum security prisons in the past.

From the outside, the red face-brick prison looks like any other jail.

It has typically high walls, three layers of fencing and a raft of CCTV cameras ensuring that every inch of the perimeter is covered at all times.

Inside, it is completely different.

The cement corridors are dull and lifeless. Every step and word echoes off the plain white walls. The clanging of the remote-controlled gates and shutters reverberates as one moves through the various sections. And it is cold. Extractor fans ensure that the temperature is never above the low 20s.

Inmates stay in single cells, never getting a look at the others because all the doors face the same direction. Each cell has a stainless steel basin and toilet, a thin mattress on a cement block, and a desk.

The walls are solid concrete, and the door is solid steel with a shoebox-size slot that food gets passed through.

 

 

Everything that Mathe and the other inmates see for 23 hours of their day is through this small slot.

There is no TV, no communal lounge, dining room or recreational area. Everything the prisoners do, they do alone. And when they do leave their cells - never for more than one hour a day - they are handcuffed and there is a warder right alongside them.

As we walked into the cell block Mathe stays in, which is made up of two banks of five cells on top of each other, prisoners immediately stuck their heads out of the slots in their doors to see what was going on. Prisoners on the upper level, who could not see the activity on the lower level, shouted out, trying to find out what was happening.

Nxele said: "Across the country, there is nothing else like this. It was designed with stringent security in mind, knowing that this is our centre of last resort.

"You cannot allow a situation where somebody who has raped and killed 55 women is seen to be enjoying prison luxuries. There is nothing like that here, OK?"

No prisoner ever goes from C-Max straight back into society. They go to other prisons first.

"Nobody wants to be here. It's not a nice place to be."

Who's who behind the bars in C-Max

Ebongweni C-Max Prison is 5km outside Kokstad, a small town on the border of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. It is perched on a hill, clearly visible as you drive along the road towards Matatiele.

A total of 1203 of South Africa's most hardened criminals - guarded by 322 "discipline members" - are jailed here under three categories:

  • Phase 1: Most hardened/ hardcore criminals. They are kept under strict guard and have no interaction with other prisoners.
  • Phase 2: The rules are still strict, but these prisoners are allowed greater interaction with other inmates.
  • Phase 3:Prisoners begin to receive education on how to engage with other prisoners; after this stage, they will be transferred to other prisons.

Current and former inmates at C-Max in Kokstad are:

 

 

Thozamile Taki:the "Sugarcane Murderer", convicted in 2010 of 13 killings. He got a life sentence for each of the murders, as well as 208 years for robbery, and was ordered to serve them at C-Max Kokstad;

Sibusiso "Tilili" Mzimela: a well-known gangster from Umlazi, Durban. A modern-day Houdini, Mzimela has escaped from police and prison custody nine times. He was sentenced to 89 years in prison in 2011, and was sent to C-Max because of his history of breakouts;

 

 

Henry Okah: a Nigerian national, Okah was sentenced to 24 years in prison in January 2013 on 13 counts of terrorism, including engaging in terrorist activities, conspiracy to engage in terrorist activities, and delivering, placing, and detonating an explosive device. It related to two bombings in Abuja, Nigeria, in early 2010. He was arrested in South Africa in October that year, at which time he also made threats against the South African government - for which he was sentenced to 13 years;

Sandile Goniwe: he was given a 25-year sentence after a 2008 robbery in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape. One security guard was killed and 20 firearms were stolen in the robbery;

 

Mongezi Samuel Jingxela: formerly of Meadowlands, Soweto, he received multiple life sentences for a string of rapes, assaults, robberies and kidnappings in the early 2000s. Jingxela ultimately faced 261 charges - including 71 of rape, 64 of kidnapping, 62 of aggravated robbery and 61 of assault - and was convicted on 229 of these in December 2007; and

 

Christoff Becker: one of the "Waterkloof Four", Becker was sent to C-Max after a video of him and fellow inmate Frikkie du Preez drinking alcohol and partying in their cell at Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria surfaced just after they were released on parole. As a result, their parole was cancelled and they were ordered back behind bars in Pretoria. But Becker was then caught with a cellphone and transferred to Kokstad in April last year. He has since been released on parole again. The "Waterkloof Four" were convicted of the 2001 murder of a homeless man in Waterkloof, Pretoria.

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