Former Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie will appear before the parole board next week.
|||Cape Town - Former Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie will appear before the parole board in a week, the correctional services department said on Thursday.
He was told on Thursday he needed to find legal representation before his meeting with the board in seven days, the department's Western Cape spokesman Simphiwe Xako said.
On Wednesday he appeared before a disciplinary committee. On Thursday he appeared before a case management committee at Pollsmoor Prison.
“The case is sub judice. We don't want to try him in the media, but we are confident about our case against him,” Xako said.
He denied reports that Staggie's parole was revoked because he joined a political party that consisted of gangsters.
Staggie, who was on day parole, reportedly joined the Patriotic Alliance two weeks ago. The party was launched in November by ex-convict Gayton McKenzie and his former jail mate and businessman Kenny Kunene.
eNCA reported that Staggie's role in the party had sparked the move to revoke his parole.
One of his parole conditions was that he not associate with gangsters, and that by joining the party's ranks, he was inadvertently doing so, the news channel had reported.
Xako said the department's mandate was to ensure safe incarceration of inmates, and not to prescribe which party they could join or vote for.
He said the department had a discretion to call anyone on parole at any time to ensure adherence to parole conditions.
“I do not know where those reports come from. Staggie is an offender, not a private citizen, and it is the department's discretion to call him as he is still under management by the department.”
Staggie was sentenced in 2003 to 15 years in prison on charges of kidnapping and rape. In 2004 he received another 13 years for gun theft from a police armoury.
The sentences ran concurrently, and he served 11 years before his release on day parole in September.
Sapa