Zolile Sekeleni (links) en Senohe Matsoara (regs). (Photo: Becker Semela/GroundUp)
Deur Becker Semela, GroundUp
A former warden of the Mangaung Prison and the father of the doctor who is believed to have helped the serial rapist and convicted murderer Thabo Bester to escape, appeared in court on Tuesday.
Zolile Sekeleni (65), the father of Bester’s friend dr. Nandipha Magudumana and Senohe Matsoara (39) briefly appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court for their alleged involvement in the case.
The two defendants face charges of murder, obstruction of justice and complicity. Sekeleni is also facing fraud charges, while Matsoara is suspected of arson.
The case has been adjourned until April 17, when Sekeleni and Matsoara can apply for bail.
The public prosecutor in the case insisted that the suspects be detained separately until their next appearance. The magistrate granted the request and Sekeleni was taken to the Bainsvlei police station, while Matsoara is being held at the Brandfort correctional centre.
According to the official indictment, the defendants are accused of murdering a person in the Mangaung district of the Free State in March last year.
Bester escaped in May last year from the Mangaung maximum security prison in Bloemfontein, which until recently was run for years by the multinational security company G4S. Although it was initially thought that he died in a fire in his cell, it has since come to light that the body of an unknown man was brought into the cell and set on fire. This while Bester escaped.
GroundUp learns that Matsoara, then an employee of G4S, was on duty in his cell block on the night of Bester’s escape. He was suspended shortly after the fire and given the go-ahead in September last year.
Days after the fire, Magudumana apparently tried to collect the charred body of the unknown man from a mortuary. She apparently argued that she was in a romantic relationship with the deceased – who was then understood to be Bester. However, the police seized the body, after which she approached the court and claimed that she was Bester’s wife. She submitted an affidavit from her father – Sekeleni – as proof of the lobola negotiations between him and Bester.
Magudumana said in a sworn statement that her father and an assistant collected the body from a mortuary in Soweto ten days after Bester’s apparent death.
Rhewal it reported earlier that Matsoara was arrested on Saturday at his home in Bloemfontein and Sekeleni the day before at his home in Port Edward in KwaZulu-Natal.
Bester, his girlfriend Magudumana and an unidentified Mozambican citizen are already in Tanzania on Friday evening caught up.
A delegation led by the police’s deputy national commissioner, Lt. Gen. Tebello Mosikili, being guided, has meanwhile arrived in Arusha in Tanzania to discuss the extradition process with the country’s officials.
- This report was originally posted on GroundUp and is used here with permission.
