Police raid Thabo Bester’s Hyde Park ‘hideout’

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has raided fugitive Thabo Bester’s last known residence in Hyde Park on Tuesday.

Correctional Services says it has nothing to hide about the issue surrounding the prison escape of Thabo Bester. This comes as police conducted a raid on a home in Hyde Park Joburg looking for evidence.#sabcnews

— SABC News Radio (@SABCNews_Radio) April 4, 2023

This happened weeks after he reportedly vacated the luxury mansion due to non-payment of rent.

In a statement on Tuesday, the SAPS said it would not comment further on the matter.

“As the SAPS, we are reiterating that we won’t, at this stage, give a blow-by-blow update on the progress of investigations. We once again urge the media to give the detectives space to do their work,” it said.

Bester’s escape

Bester, who was convicted in 2012 for rape and murder, was spotted at a Woolworths in Sandton City nearly two months after his reported death in prison.

This despite being declared dead by the department of correctional services after a body was found in a prison at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein in May 2022.

ALSO READ: Thabo Bester: ‘Difficult for govt to say what G4S is not complying with’

The official version was that Bester set himself alight in his cell.

According to GroundUp, the body found found in Bester’s prison cell was dead before the fire broke out.

G4S vs parliament

On Tuesday, G4S, the security company which manages the Mangaung Correctional Centre, shunned Parliament leaving MPs frustrated as convicted murder and rapist, Bester remains on the run.

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services met on Tuesday to discuss Bester’s escape from the maximum security prison last year.

ALSO READ: Thabo Bester saga: Prison department denies it has autopsy report. Here it is!

Despite receiving an invitation to appear before the committee last week, G4S failed to show up to the meeting.

In a letter dated 3 April, G4S asked the committee that the company be summoned after Easter holiday and also requested that it be afforded parliamentary protections.

The company explained that it needed “sufficient time to prepare” for the meeting.

‘Flimsy protection’

Outraged by the developments, Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Glynnis Breytenbach suggested that the meeting not proceed without G4S.

“They thumb their nose at a committee of Parliament and… [demand] to be summonsed here in order to obtain some sort of flimsy protection. For what? If they have nothing to hide they would have been here,” she said.

“It makes very little sense to me [and] a mockery of this procedure to proceed with this inquiry without G4S being present.

READ MORE: ‘Mockery of this procedure’: G4S fails to show up in Parliament over Thabo Bester saga

Additional reporting by Molefe Seeletsa