The Thabo Bester Story – 9780624094609

Description

News of the sensational escape of convicted murder and rapist Thabo Bester, assisted by his partner, the celebrity Dr Nandipha Magudumana, shocked South Africa. In Escape from Cell 35, Marecia Damons and Daniel Steyn, the GroundUp journalists who had the scoop first, tell the full story. In November 2022, they received a tip-off that Bester had escaped from the maximum-security prison in Manguang by faking his death, and that the charred body found in Cell 35 was not his. GroundUp requested the prison’s visitors reports and found the autopsy report — the deceased had been dead before the fire broke out … Soon after, Bester was spotted in Sandton, where he and Nandipha were living it up in a palatial home. GroundUp published the photo of him in Woollies. The pair went on the run, and was apprehended in Tanzania. Escape from Cell 35 tells the full story, from the tragedy surrounding Thabo Bester’s many victims to the web of complicity and corruption in the South African prison system.