[imagesource: IOL]

Thabo Bester was serving a life sentence for the murder of Johannesburg model and car saleswoman Nomfundo Tyhulu, as well as multiple rapes.

Nicknamed the “Facebook rapist”, he was known to lure women in from social media with claims that international modelling scouts were interested in them before raping and robbing them.

In 2012 he was sent to Mangaung Prison, a maximum security prison run by G4S, a multinational security company.

The Bloemfontein-based prison is also the second-largest private prison in the world.

Somehow, a fire broke out in his cell on May 3 this year and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) reported that he had been found dead, according to GroundUp:

A mattress had been set alight in the cell in which Bester had been isolated. A body was beneath, burned beyond recognition. Six months on, the circumstances surrounding his death are still murky.

Investigators still need to answer a couple of questions, like how the fire started in the cell in one of the country’s most secure prisons, if the person died before or after the fire, and who exactly died.

Most alarmingly, DNA testing on the body found in the cell has not been completed and the forensic reports and other Medico-Legal documents that would allow authorities to confirm the identity of the body were not processed properly.

Even though it has widely been reported that Bester died in that cell fire, the circumstances of his death are suspicious:

An anonymous source quoted in the Sunday Independent in May suggested that Bester had been vocal about his life being in danger days before the fire. They told the paper, “Thabo complained to the prison management that there was a hit on him after he failed to pay a protection fee to the members of the 26 Gang, instead he was dragged to solitary confinement kicking and screaming last week Friday against his will.”

IOL adds:

“They told him it was for his own protection while he felt his rights were being violated as the authorities were supposed to lock those threatening him in a solitary cell,” said another prison official, who asked not to be named as he is not allowed to speak to the media.

Besides an incomplete investigation, there are also questions about an alleged prison official being suspended following the fire in the cell:

“The man was burned to ashes, it looks like he had covered himself with his mattress and allegedly set himself alight. You couldn’t even recognise him, we just assume that the ashes belong to him as he was the only person in that cell,” the official explained.

The charred body was found by a kitchen worker who reported for duty just before 4AM that Tuesday, having spotted smoke coming out of the cell.

GroundUp reported a few major rumours floating around about Bester’s death, as well as talk of a cover-up:

1. The body reported to be Bester’s might have died before the fire in the cell from stabbing and head wounds, and not due to smoke inhalation or burns.
2. The body in the cell is not Bester’s, but that of another inmate that may have died (possibly murdered).
3. A guard helped Bester escape.

According to preliminary analysis, though, the only likely scenario is that Bester did die in the cell. It is just a matter of when, why, and how.

The pressure is now on SAPS and DCS to get some concrete answers.

[sources:groundup&iol]