Thabo Bester during his trial more than ten years ago. (Photo: Provided)
A former employee (39) of the G4S private security company and a 65-year-old man were last weekend in connection with the notorious Thabo Bester escape case arrest.
Bester, a convicted murderer and rapist, faked his own death in May last year and escaped from the Mangaung maximum security prison in Bloemfontein. This prison has been run by G4S for many years.
Brig. Athlenda Mathe, police spokesperson, says the former G4S employee was arrested at his home in Bloemfontein on Saturday, and the 65-year-old suspect at his home in Port Edward in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday. Both suspects are accused of helping a convicted criminal to escape and hide.
Rhewal used to report that Bester, his girlfriend Nandipha Magudumana and an unidentified Mozambican citizen were arrested in Tanzania on Friday evening. According to the police, they apparently intended to leave Tanzania and cross the border into Kenya. Interpol and several other actors were involved in the arrest.
A delegation led by the police’s deputy national commissioner, Lt. Gen. Tebello Mosikili, being led, has meanwhile arrived in Arusha in Tanzania.
“The team is currently in discussions with their Tanzanian counterparts to finalize the legal process needed to extradite Thabo Bester and his accomplices to South Africa,” Mathe said on Monday.
General Fanie Masemola, South Africa’s national police commissioner, welcomed the latest developments and says there is a possibility that more people could be arrested.
Bester’s escape and the falsification of his death went unnoticed for almost a year. It only came to light last month that he never died in a fire at the prison, but that the body of an unknown person was apparently smuggled into the prison and set on fire in Bester’s cell. A case of murder is being investigated in this connection.
Earlier this week, the Gauteng police raided the mansion in a luxury Johannesburg neighborhood where Bester is believed to have been hiding weeks ago. Bester apparently went to the four-bedroom house with Magudumana, a medical doctor, before they fled again.
