Why? "Just in case, we had brought a chisel. The key, fortunately, also worked for the door of Stephen's neighbouring cell. "I wanted to run but we just kept walking to the railway station, where we used our money to get in a taxi.. Lee worked for the University of the Witwatersrand, while Jenkin ran the "cell" on his own in Cape Town. 2020 PG-13 1h 46m DVD . 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The lifelong supporters of the Nelson-Mandela-led African National Congress, they strove to mobilize the people to abolish segregation. We were working in a carpentry workshop and I thought, I wonder if we can make a key out of wood. Moumbaris was the only non-South African prisoner, and when Jenkin met him, he appeared as "a little aloof". It's not intended as a . In 1997, he became a director of Unwembi Communications (Pty) Ltd.[7], Around the turn of the millennium Jenkin co-founded the Community Exchange System, an internet-based moneyless exchange for local communities, comparable to LETS, writing the entirety of its software. [19], By escaping, Moumbaris had reduced his sentence by five and a half years. Speaking from his home in North London, dad-of-two Stephen, now 62, says they had been determined to escape from the moment they arrived at notorious Pretoria Prison. Lee moved back to Cape Town in December after enrolling in a master's degree in sociology, and the two continued their undercover work, but unbeknownst to them they were by this time under surveillance by the Security Branch of the South African Police. As clunkily deployed in the [] "You are the white Mandela," says a ham-faced warden, all but spitting in the face of anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin upon his arrival at Pretoria Local Prison in 1978. While reminiscing about his childhood years, he suddenly remembered how he would pick locks back at home. In June 1978, Stephen Lee and Tim Jenkin were sentenced to eight to 12 years in prison for producing political pamphlets during the Apartheid. Jenkin and Lee - joined by fellow inmate and French national Alex Moumbaris - decide to send the regime a clear message and escape. While awaiting clearance for membership, Jenkin worked as a social worker at a reform school in Swindon. For 14 free days, you can have access to a world of in-depth analyses, investigative journalism, top opinions and a range of features. Here, Jenkin met his future wife Robin. Goldberg distracted the warden while the three made their escape. You are the white Mandela, says a ham-faced warden, all but spitting in the face of anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin upon his arrival at Pretoria Local Prison in 1978. It took them months to crack the fourth lock. But fortunately the metal of the keyhole marked where it was getting jammed, meaning Tim could accurately file it down to size. Door three fortunately worked with the same key as the inner cell door. Once the key was ready to go, they had to work out how to get the door open without the guards noticing. There he met and married a French woman, Marie-Jos. . Escape from Pretoria airs on Saturday, 4 July, at 20:00 on TNT (DStv 137) We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred. lindbacken fastigheter [21], Along with Lee, Jenkin was charged with "producing and distributing 18 different pamphlets on behalf of banned organisations" including the South African Communist Party, the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, from 1975 to 1978, and urging people to join the liberation movement. How? The fact that they were all in prison for their political activities and beliefs united them, and "as members of a revolutionary organisation [they] were disciplined and shared in [their] suffering collectively". They then photocopied it and swapped it with other students. He worked as a trade unionist and came to South Africa in 1973. [6], At the end of 1970 Jenkin enrolled at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and graduated with a Bachelor of Social Science degree at the end of 1973. Timothy Peter Jenkin (born 1948) is a South African writer, former anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner. In 2006 a dangerous inmate, Annanias Mathe (a serial rapist charged with 51 counts of murder), got out but was caught again two weeks later. Alexandre Moumbaris is a political activist and former political prisoner. It was not until the following morning that the warders realised the three men were missing. Messages were typed into a computer, encrypted and saved to audio cassette, then sent from a public callbox to an answering machine. [18], Jenkin returned to South Africa in 1991 to manage the ANC's communications network. [4], Moumbaris and Marie-Jos were caught while trying to enter South Africa from Botswana in 1972, after a previously-arrested comrade informed on them. why is alex moumbaris not in escape from pretoria. Elated, they moved on to door three, which, incredibly, worked with the same key as the inner cell door. The arrests at Liliesleaf and convictions which followed at the Rivonia Trial in 1963-4 were followed by widespread roundups of activists and leaders, including Bram Fischer and Wilton Mkwayi. I felt so elated.". He was born in Egypt to Greek parents, grew up in Australia, lived and worked in the UK, was imprisoned in South Africa and now lives in France. Members' spirits were low and this combination of factors made it difficult for the ANC to re-infiltrate the combatants who had been trained abroad. Sketchy as it is on human details, Escape from Pretoria gets by on such practical nuts and bolts. Boom, the door just slid open, absolutely smoothly, he says. After hundreds of days of looking at the keys, he commits their shape to memory and successfully makes replicas for all nineteen doors that lead to the main gate of the prison. The way Jenkin speaks about the escape is with a sort of whimsy, despite the danger theyd be in if they were caught suppose with 40 years between you and the act, theres been time to reflect. I was so worried it was making a tremendous noise. [9] His ongoing task of generating enthusiasm amongst the other inmates for the escape plan was onerous, and the stress affected his health. They were determined to fight the countys unjust apartheid regime which had enforced racial segregation since 1948. The video features excerpts from interviews with Jenkin, Lee, Moumbaris and Goldberg filmed in 2012, in between re-enacted scenes of the prison escape. In July, four ANC operatives including author Jeremy Cronin were arrested doing similar work in Cape Town and were given prison sentences. He returned to France after his escape. As the former prison inmate told The Daily Mail, this memory was to transform his life, and soon enough, he had begun to test out various plans that could help him and Tim get out of the horrid institution. After Lee's father brought him a copy of the book Papillon, the book inspired them to seriously consider the prospect of escape and they concentrated on rigorous observations of the world around them. [3], On 23 October 1973, the matter of possible theft of documents from the Clapham Common home of Moumbaris and his wife was raised in the UK parliament by Labour party MP Alex Lyon. "We would go to crowded bus stations and markets and leave them. The video features excerpts from interviews with Moumbaris, Jenkin, Lee and fellow inmate Denis Goldberg filmed in 2012, in between re-enacted scenes of the prison escape. The prison, constructed from stone and steel, had gone down in prisoner folklore as being a fortress from which no one could ever hope to escape. Despite the feature film makeover, there is no embellishment of Jenkins recollection in the script, based on his 2003 bookInside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison. It was gut-wrenching the length of time we were given, Stephen recalled. SLOUCHED on his bed in the small, dingy cell of the notorious jail where he was destined to spend the next 12 years, Tim Jenkin had a flash of inspiration. [8] He and Lee went on a speaking tour in Sweden in the early 1980s. The film was released on 6 March 2020, first in the UK and USA and then in the rest of the world. Distractify is a registered trademark. This time they came up with a plan to leave dummies in their beds, sneak downstairs, hide in a cupboard and wait for the warder to go upstairs. AM. But as Stephen would soon find out on a vital reconnaissance trip to the dentist, there were still a total of 10 doors separating them from freedom. Actually were Tim to 12 years and Stephen to 8 years in Pretoria Prison shipped after they Handed out leaflets with a (harmless) explosion. [4], After leaving school, he avoided conscription into the South African Defence Force, and worked at a variety of jobs for two years, with no particular interest in anything except motorcycle racing. This was going to let us out of the cells into the corridor.. In the 1990s he and others created an association dedicated to the memory of Joseph Stalin, later dissolved but re-formed, for his role in creating socialism, with free health and education. [5] He later wrote that he had "grown up a 'normal' complacent white South African" who "unthinkingly accepted the system and for twenty-one years never questioned it". The casting of Daniel Radcliffe as Jenkin lends it some marquee appeal, but this still feels like efficient VOD fodder, sure to age as memorably as Stander, that other blandly internationalized biographical romp pulled from the same passage of South African history. Escape From Pretoria follows the months-long construction of an escape plan formulated by South African apartheid activists Tim Jenkin, Stephen Lee, and French national Leonard Fontaine (substituted for Egyptian-Australian activist Alex Moumbaris). [17] Lee, having many friends in Johannesburg, thought it best to contact them in the first instance, so the group split at that point, making plans to meet in London. Following the. Escape from Pretoria," however, the line acts as a shortcut to nobility, in a tight genre exercise that has scant time for such elaborate niceties as character development and social context. Rent EGP 29.99 Buy EGP 149.99 Trailers Trailer 14+ COMMON SENSE They were never told how the security police got onto them, and Jenkin concluded that it must have been the result of meticulous police work and long surveillance. With Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Webber, Ian Hart, Mark Leonard Winter. 'Escape from Pretoria' will . Using an ingenious homemade wooden key attached, like a crankshaft, to the end of a broomstick, Tim had just got through his outer cell door. [20], In Paris, Moumbaris organised the opening of the ANC office in 1981[21] and continued to assist the struggle against apartheid in various ways, including recruiting comrades for missions in South Africa for MK. I started to carve a few little pieces of wood, one for the shaft and one for the bit of the key, Tim told National Geographic. Escape From Pretoria premiered on March 4, 2020. From the jail they took trains, hitchhiked and walk 25 miles to make it to the border of Swaziland - now called Eswatini. "[This] was hugely emotional," Stephen described The Daily Mirror how the first breakthrough made him feel. My heart was racing. [27] A decade later Jenkin also created Clearing Central, a 2nd tier exchange for moneyless exchange between groups. [6], In June 1973, Moumbaris was sentenced to 12 years in prison for conspiring with the ANC to "instigate violent revolution in South Africa', aiding guerrillas to enter the country, distributing ANC literature and reconnoitering the coast to find places for the sea-borne landing of guerrillas and arms. You hardly have to measure., He continued: The actual shape, we got by looking at their [guards] keys, as we had the overall height already, it was just a question of guessing how deep the cuts were and our guess was correct and the very first key was correct. They were both found guilty on one charge, with Jenkin receiving a 12-year sentence and Lee eight. folktandvrden karlskoga flyttar . [7][8], Jenkin met Stephen Lee in a sociology class at UCT. After a few tries, he managed to get the key to the right position and the door opened. 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Jordan Meets Reporter at 'Creed III' Premiere Who 'Teased Him all the Time' in High School: 'I Was the Corny Kid, Right? All Rights Reserved. During this time they learnt of the activities of the African National Congress (ANC), which was an illegal organisation in South Africa. It took until the next day for guards to realise they were missing, and a huge police operation to recapture them was launched. I still have it in my toolbox and still use it as a normal tool. su amigo Stephen Lee y a Alex . Adapted from Jenkin's memoir of his time served and resourcefully cut short as a South African political prisoner in the country's darkest . He continued: [It was] the only thing we managed to keep; we got rid of the all the keys immediately, but for some reason we kept thatprobably as a weapon. The movie begins with their early days spent planting harmless pamphlet bombs across Cape Town, before plunging us into the tepid everyday life of political prisoners. [2] However the boat had developed engine problems and had to return to Somalia. el de su arresto y el de su escape. [11] The wardens were all Afrikaans-speaking and were not fluent in English, and while most of the prisoners were fairly fluent in Afrikaans, they were not familiar with the topics they talked about. The first to get out of the toughest jail in South Africa, Stephen and Tim earned renown with a borderline genius hack. For Jenkin, that cost is a 12-year prison sentence, handed down after he and his best friend Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber, tersely charismatic in a thin part) were caught planting a leaflet bomb to distribute ANC protest flyers in central Cape Town. [10], Upon return to Cape Town in July 1975, Lee and Jenkin bought a typewriter, duplicator and stationery to print and post pamphlets and leased first a garage and then a tiny apartment. We would spot the night warden and your heart is just pumping," said Tim. Moumbaris, unlike the two other men, was at Pretoria Prison since 1973. To make this possible, they befriended another inmate, Alex Moumbaris. But the film still works in lockdown mode as a premium rental. I loaned it to them for the film., No longer having any of the original keys, not even as a keepsake of another life, Jenkin says: I have replicas that look like them, but not the real ones. This led him to learning more about the injustice in his own country. Tim Jenkin and his allies were imprisoned at Pretoria Prison in South Africa. We walked out as if we had every right to be there.". The inmate took a piece of paper, stuffed it into the lock using a knife and measured the depth. Tim was inspired by the book Papillon later made into a film starring Dustin Hoffman about a French convicts escape from a jungle island. We use your sign-up to provide content in the ways you've consented to and improve our understanding of you. They moved to London in 1961,[1] where Moumbaris worked for the IT department of Reuters-Comtel. On 9 January Moumbaris left for France and was welcomed upon arrival in Paris by Marie-Jos (whom he had not seen for seven years), his mother, 7-year-old son Boris, and many friends and well-wishers. The leaflet bombs were effective in spreading the anti-apartheid message, Stephen says. Now Escape From Pretoria tells the story of Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white South African activists, imprisoned in 1978 for working on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC), and their. He worked for the ANC Elections Briefing Unit from 1994 (the year of the first fully democratic elections in South Africa), before being appointed head of their Electronic Information Unit in Cape Town later that year. Yet fellow prisoners, who had already spent years locked up behind the six-metre high barbed-wire perimeter fence, poured scorn on their ambitions. The real-life Goldberg was much more supportively involved in the prison-break strategy; if the script does him something of a disservice for the purposes of greater narrative friction, thats not the fastest and loosest it plays with facts. Recalling their rather more successful attempt, Stephen explained: The sense of freedom was amazing. [4] He had not grown up in a political family, but when in Britain associated with Communists there and he was inspired by the communist resistance to the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. "Incarcerated in Pretoria Maximum Security Prison, Jenkin and Lee - joined by fellow inmate and French national Alex Moumbaris - decide to send the regime a clear message and escape. Jenkin and Leejoined by fellow inmate and French national Alex Moumbarisdecide to send the regime a clear message and escape. "That gave me the depth of the lock inside, which was the same measurement as the key. It was suspected South African agents may have raided the home for documents to use in Moumbaris' trial. But of course if you continue doing something long enough, you will make mistakes. Stephen would wait until the guards had gone to sleep. 40 years after his mad dash for freedom with his collection of wooden keys and one chisel which was, unbelievably, successful Jenkins story is being told in the feature film, with Daniel Radcliffe playing the lead role. However, after the escape plan had captured his imagination, he cleaned up and changed his attitude, and was soon promoted to the "A" group. While awaiting clearance for membership, Jenkin worked as a social worker at a reform school in Swindon. How does one who is an activist, not a locksmith even begin to fashion keys with no knowledge of the mechanisms? Let us out of the mechanisms 7 ] [ 8 ] he and Lee went on a speaking tour Sweden! Is just pumping, '' said Tim was amazing given, Stephen recalled jail in South.. 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