[Image: Wikimedia Commons ]
Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald is getting grilled by the DA, who are demanding to know how three dangerous inmates just vanished from Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison like some kind of magic show gone wrong.
MP Nicholas Gotsell, the DA’s rep on the National Council of Provinces for security and justice, isn’t buying any sleight of hand. He wants real answers, especially since two of the escapees were convicted rapists and murderers, and a high court had made it crystal clear: they belonged behind bars at Pollsmoor.
Gotsell explained that all three had initially been sentenced for violent crimes and were held at the Horizon Child and Youth Centre because of their age, per TimesLive. That all changed in July 2024 when they attacked a staff member with a sharp object. Unsurprisingly, they were bumped up to Pollsmoor’s Juvenile Centre.
“Despite being sentenced prisoners, they were later transported to the Blue Downs magistrate’s court on new assault charges. Legally they were remand detainees for that purpose only — but as sentenced prisoners, they should have been returned to Pollsmoor thereafter.
“Instead, they vanished.”
And like a plot twist no one saw coming, one of the so-called detained trio popped up again in April 2025, rearrested for robbery in Table View. That’s right, while he was supposed to be serving an 11-year sentence.
The DA, not impressed with prison hide-and-seek, asked Groenewald for urgent confirmation of their whereabouts. His answer? All three were at the Pollsmoor Remand Detainee Centre.
But during a Wednesday oversight visit, Gotsell dug a little deeper, and what he found makes Groenewald’s version look pretty shaky. Turns out one inmate was transferred to Drakenstein Correctional Centre and released in February 2025. The second one? Quietly rebooked into Pollsmoor’s medium A section after the Table View robbery. And the third? Shipped off to court in December 2024 and never seen again at Pollsmoor.
“This raises deeply troubling questions as to why the minister provided parliament with false information when violent offenders were clearly not in custody, as well as how many other such administrative bungles have gone unnoticed. It is unacceptable that, in these circumstances, victims may be unaware that their attackers are back on the streets — long before they should be.”
Groenewald’s now on the hot seat, expected to answer some uncomfortable questions in the NCOP on Thursday, including how correctional officers are trained, what’s going on with state patients inside correctional facilities, and why the prison system seems to be leaking criminals like a rusty bucket.
[Source: TimesLive]
