Lamola confirms G4S employees helped Thabo Bester to escape

JOHANNESBURG - Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola says there are employees within the private security company G4S who are implicated in the daring and elaborate prison escape of Thabo Bester.

Bester, a convicted murderer and rapist, escaped from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022.

The centre is a privately-managed prison that is operated by G4S.

The Department of Correctional Services initially communicated that Bester died in a prison fire, that was under investigation.

However, in March GroundUp reported that Bester was believed to still be alive.

It was not until these media reports that authorities acknowledged DNA-tests showed the burnt body that was found in the prison was not that of Bester's.

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Lamola said an investigation into Bester's escape was now complete, and that he would present it to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police this 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."

G4S enraged MPs last week when they refused to appear before the committee.

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Meanwhile, Police Minister Bheki Cele said the identity of the burnt body was still not known.

Cele said preliminary evidence showed that accomplices of Bester somehow smuggled a dead body into the prison.

"It does look like a very blunt kind of instrument was used to hit that person. That's why the police at the present moment are investigating a case of murder. We will allow them to continue to find what really happened and who the person is."