South Africans are trying to come to terms with the mystery surrounding the case of an escaped prisoner who was earlier believed to have perished in a prison fire last year.
Convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester allegedly escaped from the privately run Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein after it was believed he had committed suicide by setting himself alight in his cell in May 2022.
The Ministry of Correctional Services, however, said an investigation into the incident has concluded that Bester escaped from custody on 3 May 2022.
The ministry has admitted that a body found in his cell — which was burnt beyond recognition — was not that of the murderer.
Security company G4S, which runs the prison, however insists that Bester died in his prison cell and is not at large, further deepening the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the convicted murderer.
“We are now engaging with the second leg, in terms of what the contract says when it comes to an escape. The security breaches that we have identified, unfortunately, there is no common ground,” Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said.
He added: “We don’t seem to find each other with the contractor in terms of our findings and their findings.”
The matter has raised fears of rampant corruption at the prison facility and within the ministry.
In a stunning revelation last week, online news agency GroundUp released evidence that showed Bester, who was serving a life sentence for murder, was running multimillion-rand businesses from his prison cell.
Bester is reported to have posed as a “chairman” of media company 21st Century Media, which claimed to be a subsidiary of American media giant 21st Century Fox.
The incident has ignited calls for the resignation of Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola and Police Minister Bheki Cele for allegedly sleeping on the job.
Build One South Africa party leader Mmusi Maimane said Lamola and Cele needed to account for how they would protect the public from the rapist and murderer.
“Heads must roll. We are not safe,” Maimane said.
NM/jn/APA