Murderer Who Escaped Prison By Pretending to Set Himself on Fire Has Been Caught

A rapist and murderer who escaped a South African prison by faking his own death by setting himself on fire has been recaptured.

Thabo Bester was serving a life sentence at a private prison facility in the large central city of Bloemfontein in May 2022 when a fire broke out in his cell. A body was recovered and Bester – who was serving time for the 2012 murder of his girlfriend Nomfundo Tyhulu –  was pronounced dead at the scene.

But he wasn’t. A fresh post-mortem investigation last month revealed the corpse belonged to someone else, sparking a manhunt.

The 35-year-old was found last week in Tanzania as he and his girlfriend, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, attempted to cross into Kenya. The pair have since been deported back to South Africa where they are expected to be charged for the prison break. Bester was due to appear in court on Friday.

Magudumana’s father and a prison warden have also been arrested in connection with Bester’s escape.

The incident has caused much embarrassment for the South African government as pressure grows on the justice minister, Ronald Lamola, to resign. In response, the government has taken over the running of the private prison in Bloemfontein from British company G4S.

Bester is now being held at maximum security prison in Pretoria, where authorities have promised not to let me escape again.

“We are placing a 24-7 surveillance on him,” Makgothi Thobakgale, the head of South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services, told reporters in Cape Town. “We’re also placing 24-7 contact with him with selected highly trained Correctional Services officials to ensure that whatever circumstances he finds himself in, we’ll be on call, and we do not experience any security breach.”