/ 24 July 2024

Pre-trial proceedings into Thabo Bester’s prison escape delayed again

Thabo Bester Gallo Images 2
The pre-trial proceedings on Thabo Bester’s prison escape have been postponed to next week. (Photo by Gallo Images/Frikkie Kapp)

The pre-trial proceedings on Thabo Bester’s prison escape have been postponed to next week after the lawyer representing two of the accused dropped the case, while Bester’s new lawyer said he had not had enough time to consult his client. 

“It seems to me at this stage that the matter is not [ready] to proceed to trial,” Judge Cagney Musi said.

Bester and his co-accused appeared in the Bloemfontein high court on Wednesday in a case in which they face 30 counts of fraud, corruption, violating a corpse and aiding and abetting a prisoner escape. Bester, a convicted murderer and rapist, escaped from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022. 

On Wednesday, the lawyer for Senohe Matsoara and Tieho Makhotsa, the third and sixth accused, withdrew from the matter because he had not been paid 

The judge said the two accused must find out whether they are eligible for free legal representation. 

“I am minded and inclined to give them an opportunity to apply to Legal Aid South Africa to appoint a legal representative on their behalf if they qualify. That postponement will be very short,” Musi said.

Bester’s current lawyer, Lerato Moela, asked the court for permission to consult his client in the court cells. He said prison officials had made it difficult for him to speak to Bester.

“Because of the challenges we have been having, each and every time we request a consultation we are given a maximum of two hours and in those two hours we must garner the information, write notes and under difficult circumstances,” Moela said. 

This is not the first time that Bester’s legal representatives have complained about correctional services officials not giving them enough time to meet their client.

In a courtroom outburst in June, Bester said his life has been made difficult by prison officials at Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru prison, where he is held pending trial. 

Moela joins a long line of lawyers that have come and gone as Bester’s legal representatives, the most recent being Mohammed Seedat who withdrew from the case in June citing logistic problems.

Other lawyers, including advocates Dali Mpofu and Zandile Mshololo, have also withdrawn from representing Bester since he was re-apprehended in April 2023.

On Wednesday, state prosecutor Amanda Bester expressed her frustration with the delays in the pre-trial proceedings. 

“We are ready for trial and I think the other accused are ready as well,” she said. 

The judge questioned whether Bester had had the same access to his legal representation as the other accused. 

The state prosecutor replied: “Correctional services must answer to that, I am not a party to that, I can’t answer on their behalf.” 

Of the eight accused, Bester, Nandipha Magudumana and Xanda Moyo remain in custody while the rest are out on bail of R10 000 each. The case will be back in the Bloemfontein high court on 31 July. 

Bester was sentenced in 2012 to life imprisonment for two counts of rape and murder of his then-girlfriend, Johannesburg car salesperson Nomfundo Tyhulu, and for armed robbery related to possessions he took from Tyhulu after killing her. He was also called the “Facebook rapist” because he used social media to lure women and rape them. In his previous court appearance, Bester claimed that he was coerced into confessing to Tyhulu’s murder.