The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee (PPC) is expected to be briefed on Thabo Bester’s escape from prison on Tuesday, 04 April.
Bester who faked his own death and escaped from the Mangauang Correctional Centre in May last year is nowhere to be found.
Now, as the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) comes under fire for allowing the escape of the ‘Facebook rapist’ to take place right under their noses, the Committee is said to have requested the briefing.
DCS is expected to brief the PPC without private security company G4S present.
G4S security officials are implicated in Bester’s escape and were reportedly paid to help the fugitive make his grand escape.
While the three G4S officials, who were on duty the night Bester staged his escape, have since been suspended and later dismissed, the private correctional services facility will not be renewing its contract with the security company as a result.
The company is however requesting a seat at the PPC table to address the rapist and murderer’s escape from the maximum security facility.
In writing to the PPC, G4S said, “From the outset of the events that occurred on May 3 2022 at the Mangaung Correctional Centre, G4S Correction Services has fully co-operated with various investigations by the relevant authorities and continues to do so.
G4SCS is bound by statutory obligations in the Correctional Services Act and is therefore unable to issue public statements on the events or its co-operation with the subsequent investigations.
Therefore G4SCS would welcome the opportunity to engage with the parliamentary portfolio committee on justice and correctional services and has written to the committee requesting that it issues a formal invitation to G4SCS (SA) to appear before the committee to address this matter under parliamentary privilege.”
G4S is excluded on a briefing about Thabo Bester’s escape in Parliament
PPC Chairperson, Bulelani Magwanishe says DCS has not briefed the committee on the matter, which was brought to the committee’s attention by media.
“At this stage, the committee is only aware of the information that it gathered from media reports about the alleged death in a fire on the inmate. Which is now alleged to have been a scam, with the new allegations that he escaped from Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein.”
Thabo Bester, who was serving a life sentence at the Mangaung Correctional Center, faked his death by setting fire to his prison cell. With the help of G4S employees, Bester smuggled a man’s body into the prison, which was stored in the prison’s kitchen fridge for two days.
The body was then moved to Bester’s prison cell in solitary confinement where it was set alight, so the conman could escape.
According to DCS, the post-mortem results show the body that was found burnt beyond recognition, did not die from repercussions of the fire but from blunt-force trauma to the head.
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