The government said on Thursday that a South African fugitive who staged his own demise during an embarrassing prison break had been extradited from Tanzania and sent back to prison.
The convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester broke out of a privately owned Bloemfontein jail in May of last year, but South African police didn’t learn of his escape until last month, when they began a manhunt.
Bester was thought to have set himself on fire while incarcerated, but in late March, authorities reported that an autopsy showed that the individual who was discovered dead in his cell had really died from blunt force head injuries before being set on fire. A murder investigation has been opened.
In South Africa, where women’s rights organisations have long charged the government with not doing enough to combat violence against women, the case has aroused uproar.
Bester, who was dubbed the “Facebook rapist” and received a life term in jail in 2012 for rape, robbery, and murder, attracted victims on the social media site before raping and robbing them. He at least killed one person.
Thabo Bester, a woman with whom he is rumored to be romantically linked, and a Mozambican accomplice were all apprehended by Tanzanian officials on Friday night, according to a statement made by Justice Minister Ronald Lamola on Saturday.
Lamola announced on Thursday that the two had been returned to South Africa.
“We can confirm that these fugitives have been returned to South Africa” from Tanzania, Lamola told a news conference in Cape Town.
“Mr Thabo Bester has been readmitted into the Kgosi Mampuru central maximum correctional facility,” Lamola said, thanking the Tanzanian government.
He stated that the woman was in custody until a court hearing later on Thursday.
Early on Thursday morning, Bester and the woman flew into a privately owned airstrip located to the north of Johannesburg.
Earlier this week, the woman’s father was accused of killing the guy who was discovered dead in Bester’s cell.