Africa-Press – South-Africa. Nafiz Modack will have to stay put at Helderstroom Prison in Caledon, after trying unsuccessfully to get moved to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town to be closer to his lawyers.
The Western Cape High Court handed down judgment on Thursday and said he had not yet gone through all of the internal processes available for a move.
Instead, after not getting a reply to a letter to prison authorities at the beginning of the year, he instructed his legal team to go straight to court.
Modack argued that he had been so busy with all of his cases that he did not have time to bring applications sooner.
Alleged Cape Town gang leader back in court for attempted hit on lawyer William Booth
Modack and his lawyers want him closer to Cape Town to make it easier to consult on the ever-growing list of charges against him. He feels that not being able to consult easily violates his trial rights.
He usually travels more than 100km to Cape Town courts in an armoured car in a high-speed convoy. At his last court appearance, he complained that he had to leave so early that he had not even eaten breakfast.
He said he could only shower every other day because there weren’t enough warders to guard everybody for a daily shower.
The court heard that the Department of Correctional Services believed that Helderstroom was the safest place for him to be, after threats on his life emanated from Pollsmoor Prison.
Many of Modack’s charges link him to gang members who have entered into plea and sentencing agreements.
Pollsmoor is known to be holding several sentenced or awaiting-trial gangsters.
The court also turned down his request for his family to be allowed to bring him better food than that served in prison.
Modack also wanted them to bring him multivitamins and other medication he might need.
He said the food was inferior, and that he needed multivitamins.
Modack was first held at Drakenstein Prison in Paarl, but then moved to Helderstroom Prison in the chilly hills near Caledon.
His growing list of co-accused range from an Anti-Gang Unit policeman, to alleged gangsters from Woodstock, to a former SA Revenue Service employee.
The trial will see more suspects arriving in the dock as preparations to transfer the different matters in the mega-case continue.
‘Far from Cape Town’
The case began over an attempt to scare off Anti-Gang Unit detective Charl Kinnear, who was investigating the broader illegal guns network, and high-profile murders. Since then, it has morphed to include ordering the murder of Nici Heerschap, the father of Hawks official Nico Heerschap, who was investigating him. This was a case of mistaken identity. He is also implicated in the attempted murder of lawyer William Booth.
Kinnear was assassinated outside his house in Bishop Lavis in September 2020 while waiting for his son to move a car from the driveway so that he could park and relax for the weekend.
The first arrest after Kinnear’s murder was of former rugby player, turned debt collector, Zane Kilian, who denied everything.
The net started closing in and Modack was arrested in April 2020. He also denied everything, saying he was the victim of crooked cops who were unhappy about his efforts to get drugs out of night clubs.
The investigation into the alleged enterprise also included his mother and two brothers as suspects.
Judge James Lekhuleni wrote in his judgment on the application to be moved: “It is common cause that the applicant has been afforded the right to consult with his legal representatives in private and out of earshot of prison officials.
“The only concern raised is that this correctional centre is very far from Cape Town, and it takes his legal representatives almost two hours to travel to this prison,” he said.
Lekhuleni said the prison authorities’ suggestion that Modack’s lawyers sleep over in Helderstroom to consult him was not unreasonable.
As to him asking for multivitamins and medication, he said Modack could get them at the prison hospital.
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