LONG ARM OF THE ’LORD’: How ‘SA’s top gang boss’ represents a caving criminal justice system

Murderer George ‘Geweld’ Thomas has been in jail for more than a decade. But last week, on 17 September, the prisons boss described him as South Africa’s “number one gang leader” whose movements could risk national security. Scandals surrounding Thomas now point to how the criminal justice system has been infiltrated, basically from start to finish.

The plan was to use drugs to lure a target to a specific spot where a colluding policeman would arrest them to get them into jail, where they would be killed.

This plan hit a snag because security in the jail meant the killing couldn’t go ahead.

So, the plan was changed – an alleged gangster paid the target’s bail to free them so that, unbeknownst to the target, they could be murdered outside.

A 2022 court judgment, from a case centred on gangsterism, identifies 28s prison gang boss George “Geweld” Thomas as allegedly having issued the deadly instruction. (His nickname means “violence” in English.)

While it is not clear when that specific murder was carried out, it must have been years ago.

Thomas was once based in the Western Cape, which is known as South Africa’s gang violence capital.

Back in 2015, he was sentenced to at least 175 years in jail for crimes that included multiple murders.

The trial that culminated in Thomas’s sentencing was pivotal – he had shared a dock in the Western Cape’s high court with about 16 other accused, and during those years-long proceedings, six State witnesses were murdered.

I interviewed Thomas in 2012 while he was still on trial and as he sat in the dock surrounded by police officers.

At that stage, he was 44 years old and said he had spent an intermittent 21 years in jail.

Thomas was soft-spoken, and when asked about his ambitions, he said: “I’m still trying to be a pastor.”

Security during the Thomas trial was heavy – bodyguards closely monitored the prosecution team.

(Thomas’s advocate was Janos Mihalik, whose son Pete Mihalik, also an advocate who represented clients including alleged gangsters, was murdered in a shooting in Cape Town in 2018.)