Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Judge Colin Lamont Lamont of the South Gauteng High Court handed down the hefty punishment on Tuesday afternoon.
Sentence is to run concurrently with other sentence.
During his sentencing the judge referred to Krejcir, who is accused number one, as a highly intelligent man who holds an economics degree.
The judge also said that the Czech fugitive hasn’t worked since he’s been in South Africa in 2007 and not worked at all since 2005.
Judge Lamont also said that it is an afront o Krejcir that he has to be here and his family in the Czech Republic.
Krejcir and five co-accused were found guilty in August last year of attempted murder and kidnapping linked to a drug deal gone wrong.
The judge said the Five year suspended sentence proposed by the advocate of the policemen was too light.
Said he had taken into account the amount of time they had spent behind bars already.
Referred to a case where a drug mule was sentenced to 20 years in prison for carrying 6.5kilogrammes of drugs.
The trial was halted on Monday by a bomb threat, but not before Krejcir, representing himself, had told the judge he was a liar and biased.
This did not faze the judge and he rejected Krejcir’s request that he recuse himself.
Krejcir and five co-accused were found guilty in August last year of attempted murder and kidnapping linked to a drug deal gone wrong.
Tuesday was the sixth and only successful attempt to complete sentencing proceedings in the matter.
The Star newspaper last week reported on an alleged plot by Krejcir to kill high court Judge Colin Lamont.
The paper said Krejcir had apparently hired a European hitman who had allegedly tried to visit Krejcir in Kokstad C-Max in December to hatch a plan for the assassinations, but officials prevented this.
“A top cop had rushed to the Kokstad maximum security facility the following day and demanded all the video footage showing the faces of visitors, claiming he was going to investigate the matter,” The Star reported.
On Thursday, Hawks national spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi told News24 the hawks were one step ahead of Krejcir.
“We are not aware of the alleged plot by Krejcir, but we do take these allegations seriously and we will be investigating. We have remained a step ahead in this investigation,” he said responding to the report in The Star.
– eNCA