Cape Town – G4S, the security company managing the Mangaung prison where “Facebook rapist” Thabo Bester was imprisoned before he escaped, is alleged to have hidden a letter exposing the escape.
News reports indicated the letter was written by two prisoners in Mangaung prison in May last year.
Bester was believed to have died after setting himself on fire behind bars, but in late March police said DNA tests revealed the charred remains found in his cell belonged to someone else.
IOL reported that the letter to addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa, Minister Ronald Lamola and Judge Edwin Cameron exposing Bester’s escape was sent to G4S as per protocol, but it was deleted and never sent to the intended recipients.
A G4S assistant administrator had reportedly advised her colleagues that “no complaint to be captured” in an email dated 24 May 2022, the report said.
The report said an email seen by Sunday Independent confirmed the letter, and that the assistant administrator had told colleagues that “the inmate must use his free envelop and send the letter himself”.
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The inmates are said to have asked G4S to release video footage captured on the prison camera to prove their claim that Bester escaped with the help of certain officials, the report said.
However, the assistant administrator reportedly stressed that “the video footage is a property of G4S and will therefore not be made available for inmates, but to bodies/organisations whose responsibilities require such.”
The news came shortly after Justice and Correctional Service Minister Ronald Lamola confirmed G4S employees helped Bester with the daring escape, reported EWN.
He said an investigation into Bester’s escape was now complete, and he would present it to Parliament’s portfolio committee on police on Wednesday.
“Yes, there are officials implicated from G4S in terms of the investigative report that we have. Whether the investigation from correctional services has been completed or not? Yes. It has been completed and submitted to me on the 24th of March. We will give a blow-by-blow of that to the portfolio committee,” the report quoted Lamola as saying.
Last week the chairperson of the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services, Bulelani Magwanishe, accused G4S of playing “hide and seek” and using legal processes to buy time.
This is after the security company said it would not to show up at a committee meeting to discuss the events that led to Bester’s escape unless it was summonsed by Parliament.
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Compiled by Olwethu Mpeshe
