Murder attempt is straight out of 007’s book

It was a lethal gadget right out of a James Bond movie: Remote-controlled gun barrels rigged behind the rear license plate of a car that spray bullets at an unsuspecting target.

But South African police say it was a possible attempt to kill Radovan Krejcir, a Czech fugitive who was sentenced in his country last year to 11 years in jail for tax fraud and has been linked to underworld figures in Johannesburg.

Krejcir emerged unscathed from Wednesday’s episode, which peppered his bullet-proof Mercedes Benz with impact marks and shocked observers of South Africa’s organised crime who thought they had seen it all. The empty, parked vehicle where the weapon was hidden burst into flames after the shooting, possibly destroying evidence.