Reformed gangster Welcome Witbooi grew up in poverty without a father figure. He was an easy target for the gangs that roam South Africa’s Cape Province.
Young, impressionable and angry, he accepted a dangerous gang initiation challenge: To shoot a pregnant woman.
WATCH: Reformed gangster, the Welcome Witbooi story
Witbooi, the jailbird
It didn’t take him too long to end up in Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town’s maximum security penal facility home to some of South Africa’s most dangerous criminals.
While behind bars, he became the leader of one of South Africa’s most notorious gangs. He was a four-star “general” in the “28s”, one of the three prison gangs that make up “The Number.”
Each star tattooed on his shoulder represented someone he killed.
His life seemed to be heading in a downward spiral of violence until a chance encounter changed his thinking and life forever.
Witbooi’s life-altering introspection
Witbooi was listening to some new interned prisoners talking about their criminal pasts.
One of them was going into graphic detail of a house he’d robbed and the woman he’d raped and killed.
Witbooi looked at him and thought, “If I’m a father one day, how will I protect my daughter from men like these, from men like me?”
Right there and then, he decided to get out of the gang. It proved an uneasy feat to overcome.
But “The Number” doesn’t just let its members walk away.
Four other “generals” had to be summoned from other prisons, a move that involved not just the regional and provincial commissioners of the Department of Correctional Services but also the Minister of Correctional Services.
Two would be his judges. The other two would be his executioners.
Here, he learnt that an earlier act of kindness a few years back would ultimately save his life.
Witbooi was allowed to leave the “28s” behind him and now dedicates his time to educating South Africa’s youth about the dangers of gang life.
ALSO WATCH: Ordinary people, extraordinary lives, the Chejon Fernandez story
