South Africans say the Thabo Bester escape saga highlights the inadequacies in the country’s police and prison system.
At the weekend, Police Minister Bheki Cele and Justice Minister Ronald Lamola announced that Bester, his girlfriend Nandipha Magudumana and a Mozambican national were arrested in Tanzania on Friday night.
Bester and his girlfriend have been on the run since his escape became public last month.
It had been believed he had died in a fire at the Mangaung prison in Bloemfontein but he had escaped in May last year.
The trio were arrested following joint efforts by Interpol and the police’s Crime Intelligence Unit.
It is believed they were on their way to Kenya at the time of their arrest.
Private security company Fidelity ADT had also been assisting the South African Police Service in the hunt for the couple.
Last week, CEO Wahl Bartmann put up R100 000 reward for information that would lead to their arrest.
Baartmann said these tips led to the identification of the vehicle the couple were using and the Fidelity Business Intelligence Centre was able to trace the car using CCTV cameras.
Update on Thabo Bester arrest in Tanzania
It’s believed, the couple left the country through the Zimbabwean border and fled to Tanzania, where they were apprehended.
To many, Bester’s staged death and his dramatic escape from prison encompasses a typical soap opera, unfolding right here in South Africa.
Many are asking, exactly who is Thabo Bester?
South Africa first learnt of Thabo Bester in 2011, the seemingly charming young man in his early 20s who would later become known as the Facebook Rapist.
He lured scores of young women, raping and robbing them, at the promise of lucrative modelling jobs.
At one point, Bester, who at the time was a convicted fraudster, had up to 13 aliases.
Young women in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, who had modelling aspirations, were his prime targets.
One of his many victims was Nomfundo Tyhulu, a Johannesburg car saleswoman.
She died after he stabbed her to death in Cape Town at a bed and breakfast.
While serving his prison sentence for Tyhulu’s murder and other convictions, Bester allegedly ran a multi-million rand scam media company called 21st Century Media from his prison cell.
Suspicion of his escape from prison arose when he was spotted shopping with celebrity medical doctor Nandipha Magudumana at a Woolworths in Sandton City nearly two months after his reported death in prison.
An investigation by the Department of Correctional Services found that the charred body found after a fire broke out at the Free State private prison, was not that of Bester. A case of murder is currently under investigation.
“I think we should all be asking ourselves how did the prison not know that this man was missing for over a year. To be honest, it’s actually pretty sad, how he manage to out smart the entire police system for a year. Why was the autopsy not done sooner, how could they not identify this person? It just highlights how corrupt the system is. It’s a very scary scenario, at the end of the day, you expect proper autopsies to be done, proper investigation to be done. In hindsight, we [are] just glad they were able to discover that the body was not his,” say some citizens.
During the weekend briefing, Minister Lamola confirmed that employees of the private security company G4S, operating the prison, were implicated in Bester’s escape.
Police Minister Cele says South Africa will do what is necessary to bring Bester and his partner back home.
Politicians question how Thabo and Nandipha were able to escape:
