Thabo Bester's plea to testify before Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee dismissed

Convicted murderer and "Facebook rapist" Thabo Bester, tried to insert himself into Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee without success after he offered to testify before the committee.

The housekeeping meeting of the  Committee on Monday ended in a tense debate between two members of the committee, where they discussed late submissions they received, including one from Bester.

Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating allegations made by SAPS KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi met virtually in the afternoon to discuss housekeeping matters.

While the first half of the meeting dealt with Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee discussing the case opened against forensic examiner, Paul O’Sullivan, and the evidence of the suspended Inspector-General of Intelligence (IGI), it was the second half that saw sparks fly.

Bester is awaiting trial on several charges after he, along with his life partner Nandipha Magudumana, was arrested in 2023 in Tanzania following a series of events which had shocked the nation. This includes Bester’s notorious prison break from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein, where he served a life imprisonment term for the rape and murder convictions.

The Gauteng High Court recently turned down Bester's urgent bid to be transferred back to a prison in Gauteng. Judge John Holland-Muter said the Department of Correctional Services made it clear that they had moved Bester from C-Max Prison for security reasons, and this was within their rights.

During Monday’s meeting, Andile Tetyana from Parliament’s Legal Services told the committee that they received a very scant letter from Bester saying that he wants to appear before the committee.

“The letter is scant. It is not clearly spelt out in terms of what contribution he would be making, in terms of the committee’s terms of reference. Safe to say, he wants to appear,” Tetyana said.

The letter states: “Please note that we received telephonic instructions from our client that he wants to appear before the Ad Hoc Committee to give testimony that he asserts will be useful in advancing the mission and vision of the commission, and especially as it relates to testimony that has been adduced to date regarding him.”

While the Chairperson of the Ad Hoc committee, Soviet Lekganyane, rotated the matter for discussion, MPs ultimately settled on it being too late in the process to hear the testimony from Bester, and that there are other avenues available to him, such as the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services.  

Lekganyane was the one who fully voiced his displeasure with Bester’s submission, saying that Bester is not justified. 

“Honourable (Dereleen) James has said it, the way we decided it, is that we are at a point where the South African public now wants to see us suggesting what interventions we think are necessary.

“The issue of crime is escalating in the country, and Parliament has to make a statement about its intention to keep crime in the country, and make sure that South Africans feel safe in their country,” Lekganyane said.

“Further than that, I don't think that Mr Bester is justified. Mr Bester is a convicted criminal who escaped from prison in this country and even skipped the country, according to the reports that we have had.”

Lekganyane said that whether or not Bester has appeared in court and raised “the same matters of how he was arrested and extradited to the country.. if those matters are before the court, he must allow the court to conclude those matters”.

“And if the courts have concluded on those matters, we cannot be an appeal body, in terms of South African law. He knows where such decisions would have to be appealed, and as Parliament, we must also be seen taking into account the lawful running of the country.

“We can’t promote lawlessness, where a person escapes from custody, and then he comes and tells us, 'that the manner in which I was arrested was an abduction'.

“This thing is a problem, because it is like certain sections of South Africa when they get arrested, it's abduction… An arrest is an arrest and can never be equated to an abduction, especially when you re-arrest a convicted prisoner who has escaped from prison,” Lekganyane said.

“We must come out, guns blazing, on matters like those ones, and South Africans need to understand that we want the citizens of this country to be law-abiding, and for Parliament to be reduced into a mockery, reduced into a playground, or a hall for gymnastics of any person who thinks they can approach Parliament and raise frivolous matters with us…

“Of course, when we write back to him, we will not use such statements as they may be understood to be statements of condemnation, but this is just to underscore our frustration with criminality in this country, and how criminal elements may think that they are justified, even when that country is hurting,” Lekganyane said.

“But a convicted criminal who escapes from our prisons, and then wants to be justified before us? We can't accept that.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za