The Department of Correctional Services has cast its net far and wide in a frantic search to bring Thabo Bester back to prison.
Bester, widely known as the Facebook rapist, was sentenced to life in jail for murder and multiple rapes in 2012.
However, it has since emerged that someone resembling him was spotted at Sandton Mall in Johannesburg a year after he allegedly committed suicide in his prison cell.
The department has since announced that the body of an inmate found burnt in Bester’s prison cell in May 2022 was not him, noting that an investigation is under way to determine how Bester managed to escape from the Mangaung Prison in the Free State.
The department confirmed at the weekend that Bester escaped from jail on the same day he was “declared dead in his prison cell” in May 2022.
Legal expert Mpumelelo Zikalala has been quoted by the media as saying the department had a legal duty to inform Bester’s victims of his escape.
Zikalala said that upon receiving evidence that Bester had escaped from his cell, the department should have urgently sent out an alert.
“Someone has escaped, let’s send a public service notice [that] we are currently looking for the current individual who escaped on this day,” Zikalala was quoted as saying.
“If you do happen to see them, just know they are dangerous, call the police. Most importantly inform the victims or the people who are victims before the chances are they are probably the ones who are going to be contacted first.”
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