Bester was arrested last Friday by Tanzanian police along with a woman with whom he is reportedly romantically involved, and a Mozambican accomplice.<\/p>\n
A fugitive rapist and murderer who left a burnt corpse in his cell during a daring jailbreak has returned to prison in South Africa after fleeing to Tanzania, officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The case has embarrassed authorities and sparked fresh outrage over the competence of South Africa’s police and criminal justice system.<\/p>\n
Dubbed the “Facebook rapist”, Thabo Bester — who was sentenced to life in prison for rape, robbery and murder in 2012 — lured victims on the social media platform before raping and robbing them. He killed at least one victim.<\/p>\n
He escaped from a privately-run prison in Bloemfontein almost a year ago — but police said they only found out last month.<\/p>\n
In May 2022, the charred body of a man was found in Bester’s cell, leading prison authorities to believe at first that he had set himself on fire.<\/p>\n
DNA evidence later revealed the body belonged to someone else, and police launched a murder investigation late last month.<\/p>\n
Bester was arrested last Friday by Tanzanian police along with a woman with whom he is reportedly romantically involved, and a Mozambican accomplice.<\/p>\n
They were caught in the town of Arusha, while they were said to be making their way to the Kenyan boarder.<\/p>\n
Bester and the woman, a celebrity doctor and social media influencer, were flown back by specially chartered plane which landed in Lanseria airport north of Johannesburg in the early hours of Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
“We can confirm that these fugitives have been returned to South Africa”, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola told a press conference in Cape Town.<\/p>\n
Bester was taken to the Kgosi Mampuru II correctional facility in Pretoria, Lamola said, thanking the Tanzanian government.<\/p>\n
Bester will be kept under 24-hour surveillance and guarded by “highly trained” officers, according to the justice ministry.<\/p>\n
His alleged lover and accomplice was under arrest pending a court appearance later on Thursday, he said.<\/p>\n
She faces charges of murder, violation of bodies, fraud, and aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner, according to the police.<\/p>\n
Four others have been recently arrested in connection with the escape plot, including the celebrity doctor’s father.<\/p>\n
The father, who allegedly aided Bester’s prison break, was earlier this week charged with murder in connection with the man found dead in Bester’s cell.<\/p>\n
Bester’s case resurfaced in October last year when local investigative news organisation GroundUp reported on the mystery surrounding his death.<\/p>\n
In March, the outlet reported damning evidence suggesting the deputy minister of correctional services had been informed by a prison warder about Bester’s escape as early as June 2022 — yet nothing was done.<\/p>\n
South African authorities, following mounting pressure from the public after details of his escape were uncovered, began efforts to apprehend him in late March.<\/p>\n
The correctional services ministry announced last month that it would not renew its contract with G4S, the British multinational private security company which ran the private prison Bester escaped from.<\/p>\n
The prison has been taken over by South African authorities pending the outcome of the ongoing investigations.<\/p>\n
The London-headquartered security company was also summoned to parliament by a committee looking into the case.<\/p>\n
President Cyril Ramaphosa was “disturbed” by the escape, his spokesman said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bester was arrested last Friday by Tanzanian police along with a woman with whom he is reportedly romantically involved, and a Mozambican accomplice. A fugitive rapist and murderer who left a burnt corpse in his cell during a daring jailbreak has returned to prison in South Africa after fleeing to Tanzania, officials said Thursday. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":17325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"0","type":"percentage","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[{"good_text":""}],"bad":[{"bad_text":""}],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[{"rating_text":"","rating_number":"10"}],"price":[{"shop":"","price":"","link":"","icon":""}],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"enable_post_split":"0","post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17326,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17324\/revisions\/17326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}