A story that seems to have come out of a macabre thriller film, but which actually happened.
Heinous protagonist is a South African serial rapist and murderer who, sentenced to life imprisonment, escaped from prison almost a year ago by pretending to set himself on fire in his cell . Instead, the investigations made it possible to discover another truth: the man – Thabo Bester, 38 – used a charred corpse, passing it off as his own, and then fled.
After a year on the run, Bester was captured on Friday in Tanzania and his story went around the world.
DNA tests and the autopsy confirmed that the charred body was not that of the 38-year-old, but of an unknown man, who died before the fire, probably killed with a blow to the head with a blunt object and then taken to the private prison in Mangaung , in Bloemfontein, where Bester was serving his sentence.
It remains a mystery how Bester managed to get the victim into his cell - dead or alive - and how he managed to escape.
His fugitive lasted about a year: Bester, as mentioned, was tracked down in Tanzania, where he was arrested by the local police, while he was trying to flee to neighboring Kenya aboard an SUV, together with his partner , Nandipha Magudumana , and a friend of Mozambican citizenship, both arrested with him, as announced today by the South African justice minister, Ronald Lamola . Each of the arrested was in possession of several false passports.
Known in South Africa as the "Facebook Rapist" , Thabo Bester was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for raping several women after soliciting them on Facebook and for killing at least one person.
Now extradition to South Africa is awaited: "We are confident that we will receive maximum cooperation from the sister nation of Tanzania, to help us bring these people to justice," said Minister Lamola.
(Unioneonline/lf)
