Convicted serial rapist and murderer Thabo Bester at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Picture: Screenshot, Newzroom Afrika
PRETORIA - The Department of Correctional Services has rubbished allegations circulating on social media claiming that Facebook rapist and convicted murderer Thabo Bester has been returned to the Mangaung correctional centre where he previously escaped from.
Bester appeared before the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Friday, roughly 11 months after he escaped from the G4S-run Mangaung Correctional Centre in Free State.
Singabakho Nxumalo, national spokesperson for the Department of Correctional Services, said that the widespread allegations of Bester being returned to Mangaung Correctional Centre after his court appearance on Friday were simply “false”.
“The Department of Correctional Services has noted false information circulating in various platforms that offender Thabo Bester has been returned to Mangaung Correctional Centre. We can state that Bester was transported to Kgosi Mampuru II correctional facility (in Pretoria),” said Nxumalo in a terse statement.
“In addition, the Department of Correctional Services can confirm that there is no complaint filed about threats to his life and that offender Bester is taking meals.”
Bester and his lover, celebrity aesthetics doctor Nandipha Magudumana, were arrested in Tanzania last week after they fled South Africa.
During his court appearance on Friday, Bester told the court he did not intend to apply for bail at this stage, but highlighted that he would do so at a later stage.
Bester faces charges of escape, as well as defeating the ends of justice, violation of a body and fraud.
Through his lawyer, Marvin Carpede, Bester told the court that he feared for his safety in jail and was unhappy with the food he was served in the prison.
Bester tried and failed to convince the presiding magistrate, Mohlolo Kgabisi, to allow special meals to be delivered to him in jail.
The court heard that Bester believed he would be poisoned in jail, and the court also heard that the man dubbed the “Facebook rapist” was not eating the food in prison, a claim which has now been refuted by the Department of Correctional Services.
Bester and Magudumana were brought back into South Africa in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Magudumana appeared in court hours later. She faces charges of aiding and abetting an escapee, murder, violation of bodies and fraud.
To date, the people arrested over Bester’s escape also include Magadumana’s father, Zolile Cornelius Sikelele, former G4S employee Senohe Ishmael Matsoara and Integritron CCTV technician Tebogo James Lipholo.