{"id":254288,"date":"2023-03-22T14:23:33","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/facebook-rapist-deputy-minister-was-informed-by-warden-in-june-2022-thabo-bester-escaped\/"},"modified":"2023-03-22T14:23:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:23:33","slug":"facebook-rapist-deputy-minister-was-informed-by-warden-that-thabo-bester-escaped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/facebook-rapist-deputy-minister-was-informed-by-warden-that-thabo-bester-escaped\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook rapist: Deputy Minister was informed by warden that Thabo Bester escaped"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Government appears to have been informed nine months ago that Thabo Bester escaped. Illustration: Lisa Nelson<\/p>\n

On 11 June 2022, a prison warden at Mangaung Correctional Center sent an email to the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, Phathekile Holomisa, asking: \u201cAre you aware that the inmate who \u2018allegedly\u2019 burnt to death at Mangaung Correctional Center was supposedly assisted to escape by the Mangaung Correctional Center & Department of Correctional Services officials at the prison to escape?\u201d<\/p>\n

The prisoner in question was Thabo Bester, known as the \u2018Facebook rapist\u2019, who was serving a life sentence for murder and a series of rapes.<\/p>\n

The Department of Correctional Services reported that Bester died in Mangaung Correctional Centre at about 3:35am on 3 May 2022. The official version was that Bester set himself alight in his cell. The facility is managed by multinational security company G4S. <\/p>\n

GroundUp has since reported evidence<\/a> indicating that the body found in the cell was not Bester\u2019s and that Bester in fact escaped. He has been spotted in public several times since the supposed date of his death. The body in the cell has not been identified but that person who died suffered blunt force trauma before being set alight, according to a coroner\u2019s report. A police docket related to the case was changed from suicide to murder.<\/p>\n

Months after his June email, on 8 November, the warden sent another email to Holomisa:<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Day Sir, I informed you of the Thabo Bester escape [in] my previous email \u2026 your office & \u2026 the DCS [have] ignored my emails notifying you of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears no action was taken following the warden\u2019s emails.<\/p>\n

Yet, according to Justice Ministry spokesperson, Chrispin Phiri, the deputy minister is unable to locate the emails in question, but they\u2019re doing all they can to track it.<\/p>\n

The warden said that after reporting the alleged \u201ccover up\u201d to the deputy minister, he was victimised and later transferred from the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the first incident that I\u2019ve reported. I sent him [deputy minister] a number of emails about the gang stabbings, corruption and treatment of inmates,\u201d the warden told GroundUp.<\/p>\n

Holomisa had previously replied to an email sent to him by the warden on 19 April 2022. That email dealt with conditions at the prison.<\/p>\n

The warden added that it was an \u201copen secret\u201d that the body in Cell 35, was not that of Bester and \u201cI informed the [deputy] minister \u2026 the way the whole [crime scene] thing was handled, no protocol was followed. There [were] too many red flags and we [colleagues] suspect this was an inside job from night shift [staff].\u201d<\/p>\n

Claims made by the warden about the events of the night of Bester\u2019s escape corroborate with other sources we spoke to. GroundUp is piecing together a timeline of the events of 3 May and intends to publish it in due course.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government appears to have been informed nine months ago that Thabo Bester escaped. Illustration: Lisa Nelson On 11 June 2022, a prison warden at Mangaung Correctional Center sent an email to the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, Phathekile Holomisa, asking: \u201cAre you aware that the inmate who \u2018allegedly\u2019 burnt to death at Mangaung Correctional Center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-254288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/facebook-rapist-deputy-minister-was-informed-by-warden-that-thabo-bester-escaped.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}