Former ANC whip Tony Yengeni is to go to prison on Thursday.

"It is the end of the road for us. He is going to prison," Yengeni's attorney, Marius du Toit, said yesterday.

"Strictly according to the Criminal Procedure Act, he has to report to Pollsmoor prison before 4pm on Thursday.

But the judges gave their order this morning. He will report to prison on Thursday morning."

Judges don't have to give reasons for dismissing petitions such as Yengeni's.

Du Toit said Yengeni's legal team would not be approaching the Constitutional Court in a last bid to keep the former MP out of prison.

"This is it for us," he said.

Legally, the only other route open to Yengeni is to ask the president for clemency.

Yengeni is the first person prosecuted for crimes committed during the negotiation and conclusion of South Africa's controversial multibillion-rand arms deal.

This time round there was no high-profile court appearance for Yengeni - just a quiet decision by two judges in their Bloemfontein chambers and a letter signed by a registrar of the Supreme Court of Appeal stating: "The court ordered on August 21, 2006 that the application be refused."

This means that two judges have decided that there is no reasonable chance that another judge would come to a conclusion other than that Yengeni is guilty of defrauding parliament and must go to prison.

The court also gave Yengeni 72 hours to report to prison.

It will be nearly 20 years since Yengeni was first incarcerated in Pollsmoor Prison for terrorism in 1988. He was later released unconditionally in 1991.

In March 2003, Yengeni concluded a plea bargain with the state.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of defrauding parliament for lying about a discount of 47% or R167 387 he was given on a Mercedes-Benz ML320 4x4 he had bought in 1998.

He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment under a special article in the Criminal Procedure Act that allows prison authorities to release him under correctional supervision after serving one-sixth of his sentence - in this case eight months.

His case was remarkable in two respects. First, it was the first in South Africa recognising that parliament could be defrauded, although it did not incur material loss. Second, Yengeni was sentenced to time behind bars although the fraud committed could not be measured in monetary terms.

Yengeni was released on bail of R10 000 after saying he wished to appeal against the "harsh and severe" sentence.

Several months later, Yengeni amended his appeal documentation to include a full-scale attack on the way his plea bargain with the state had been concluded.

He claimed he had been double-crossed. He said he agreed to plead guilty because he was running out of money.

He also claimed that then-minister of justice Penuell Maduna and then-National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka had promised him he would not have to go prison.

He said he had been told he could pay a fine of R5 000.

To the end, Yengeni insisted he had not committed a crime.

But high court Justices Ferdi Preller and Eberhardt Bertelsmann dismissed his appeal application.

Yengeni then petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Yesterday, the court delivered its decision.

Yengeni's luck had run out.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Times.