Three individuals involved in the case of a rapist and murderer who escaped from prison have had their charges dismissed.
Thabo Bester managed to break out of a South African prison last year by simulating his own death through a cell fire.
This escape triggered significant outrage in South Africa, where he was widely referred to as the “Facebook rapist” because he used the social media platform to deceive women with promises of job opportunities before assaulting them.
On Wednesday, Bester and nine other individuals had their charges related to the escape officially confirmed, paving the way for the trial to proceed.
Initially, twelve people, including Bester, were charged in connection with the prison break, but three of them had their charges dropped on Wednesday.
The state did not provide an explanation for the dropped charges, but it is believed that Nastaja Jansen, Thabang Mier, and Moeketsi Ramulula had their charges withdrawn due to insufficient evidence.
During the court proceedings, Bester’s legal team alleged that his telephone conversations had been recorded by the Department of Correctional Service, an allegation that the state denied.
The court was informed that the case would be ready for transfer to the high court for pre-trial proceedings on February 21 of the following year.
The death of one of the principal investigators into Thabo Bester’s audacious prison break has been confirmed by South African police.
Police said they were investigating the circumstances around the apparent death by suicide of 59-year-old Brigadier Jackson Mkhaulesi. He was found dead in his car on Monday.
Earlier in the day, he attended a court hearing where Bester’s girlfriend, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, lost her application to declare her arrest in Tanzania unlawful.
News of Brigadier Mkhaulesi’s death has sent shockwaves around South Africa.
The police detective with 31 years of service has been described as a hardworking and loyal officer.
Bester is known as the “Facebook rapist” for using social networking sites to lure his victims.
He faked his death to break out of prison last year. He and his girlfriend, who is accused of helping him escape, were arrested in Tanzania in April and brought back to South Africa to face justice.
When officials of the British-owned security firm G4S failed to show up for a crucial committee meeting on a high-risk prison escapee, outraged South African MPs were left with little alternative but to postpone the meeting.
G4S has not responded to charges that its personnel assisted incarcerated serial rapist Thabo Bester in escaping from his prison in May.
Local reports allege that a dead body was placed inside Bester’s prison cell which was then set on fire, to make it look as if Bester had died in the blaze.
Bester has been at large ever since. A woman who had been dating the escaped convict without knowing his true identity only realised who he was when she saw his photo publicised.
Subsequent DNA tests on the charred corpse from the prison confirmed it was not that of Bester.
The case has shocked and angered many in South Africa.
Explaining its absence from Monday’s meeting, the security firm said “G4SCS SA is bound by statutory confidentiality obligations … and contractual confidentiality obligations.
“In order to enable G4SCS SA to fully and properly engage with the portfolio committee, it would need to be afforded the same protections which ordinarily would apply to those attending parliamentary committees.”
Thabo Bester, who targeted his victims by finding them on Facebook, was found “dead” last May after a burned body was left in his cell – but he was later spotted in shops and restaurants in an upmarket part of Cape Town.
A rapist who targeted his victimson social media was seen sauntering through one of Cape Town’s most-upmarket suburbs after staging his own death and breaking out of prison.
Thabo Bester, who was branded the “Facebook rapist”, broke out after a charred body was found in his cell at a max-security prison run by G4S – a London-based security firm.
A few months after the brazen escape, Bester was seen in an area close to a £5million mansion he had been renting, which was down the road from the president’s home.
An investigation by news website GroundUp found that Bester did escape – and that he may have been helped by the prison’s own guards.
A post-mortem revealed that the body, which was burned beyond recognition, had been bludgeoned before it was set ablaze.
In emails sent from a prison official to the country’s deputy justice and correctional services minister, there were claims of officials helping him escape Mangaung Prison.
In a statement urging the public to help track down Bester, the department said jail guards have been sacked.
Bester was in prison after luring women to him by claiming that modeling scouts were interested in meeting them.
In a daring prison break that shocked the nation, a convicted rapist who faked his own death is the target of a manhunt launched by police in South Africa, according to reports.
In May, Thabo Bester allegedly set himself on fire in a privately run prison in Bloemfontein, South Africa, according to authorities. However, at the weekend, police claimed DNA tests proved the charred remains found in the serial rapist’s cell belonged to someone else.
“At this point, our priority is to find this fugitive of justice and establish exactly how he faked his death,” police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe told reporters on Monday.
Called the “Facebook rapist”, Bester allegedly lured victims on the social media platform before raping and robbing them. At least one victim was killed. In 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison for rape, robbery and murder.
On Sunday, police said an autopsy revealed the person found dead in Bester’s cell had died from blunt force trauma to the head before being set ablaze. A murder investigation has been opened.
The case has sparked outrage in South Africa, where women’s rights groups have long accused the government of not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
“The unfolding of this story has been like a movie and sent shivers down everyone’s spines. … I can imagine what it did to the victims,” said Bafana Khumalo, co-director of the NGO Sonke Gender Justice.
From October to December, police recorded more than 12,000 rapes across the country.
Doubts about Bester’s death were first raised by local media outlet GroundUp in November.
Photographs purportedly showing the convict grocery shopping in an affluent Johannesburg suburb have since surfaced. Some women have also come forward alleging the convict made contact with them on social media.
Before his escape, Bester also reportedly ran a scam media business from inside prison using a false name.
According to local outlet News24, he posed as head of 21st Century Media, a phantom event and production company that was a supposed subsidiary of the American company 21st Century Fox.
The media company promoted a 2018 event that advertised Hollywood superstars but turned out to be a scam, the paper said. A video of Bester addressing a company event via video call from behind bars while pretending to be in New York has gone viral.
“The escape of Bester … is testament to the incompetence of the Correctional Services system, and the endemic corruption in the sector,” the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters opposition party said in a statement.
Police have appealed to the public for any information relevant to the case.
“We want to find people who are directly involved in this matter as well as his accomplices,” Mathe said.
A South African court on Tuesday convicted a man of more than 90 rapes, some of which involved children of nine years.
The Palm Ridge Court near Johannesburgconvicted Nkosinathi Phakathi, 38, who targeted schoolgirls and also forced children to watch him commit rape for nine years between 2012 and 2021.
“He would prey on his victims while they were going to or returning from school or work, in the morning or evening… He would prey on some of them in their own homes,” Lumka Mahanjana, spokesperson for the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) detailed in a statement.
“He pretended to be an electrician who came to repair a water heater or other household appliances and raped them (…) In some cases, when he raped several people at once, he forced the other person to watch,” she added.
He was arrested in March last year after attempting to return to the home of one of his victims, prosecutors said. Police shot him in the leg, which has since been amputated.
On Tuesday, wearing a gray hoodie, the convict, who pleaded guilty last week to 148 counts, sat staring at the floor, his head slumped between his forearms that rested on a pair of crutches, as the judge reviewed the long list of his crimes.
– “Pandemic” of rapes –
He was then convicted of 90 rapes, forcing four other people to rape, forcing a child to watch a sex act on three occasions, 43 kidnappings, two assaults, and four robberies.
He is scheduled to be served with his sentence in early December.
The verdict comes a week after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said sexual violence should be considered the main “pandemic” affecting the country, while not a day goes by without new reports of “horrific” crimes.
Police data shows that rape and sexual offenses increased by 13% between 2017/18 and 2021/2022, while murders of women increased by 52% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Some women’s rights advocates accuse the government of not doing enough to combat the violence.
South Africa has been rocked recently by a series of horrific crimes, including the gang rape of eight women in July and the discovery of half a dozen women’s bodies in a central Johannesburg building last month.
