Thabo Bester: Father of South African celebrity doctor charged with fugitive rapist

In South Africa, the father of a prominent doctor and a prison warden have been charged with helping a notorious rapist and murderer escape from prison.

Thabo Bester was arrested in Tanzania on Friday after fleeing a prison in May last year after faking suicide by fire and burying the body in his cell.

He was arrested along with his girlfriend, Nandifa Magdumana, a well-known doctor.

Her father and the prison warden are now charged with murder, arson, and aiding and abetting Bester's escape.

Zoril Sekeleni and suspended prison warden Senohe Matsoala are accused of intentionally killing an unidentified person in March last year.

The two appeared in a magistrate's court in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

They were not asked to plead and details of the charges were not disclosed.

The case was adjourned to April 17 for a possible bail application.

Bester had been on the run for a year after he was thought to have died in a fire in his cell in Bloemfontein.

A search began last month after a new post-mortem revealed the body was not actually his.

After being arrested last week, he and the famous doctor are currently under tight police security at a prison in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.

South African authorities traveled to Tanzania to secure the couple's deportation.

Bester's escape sparked outrage in South Africa, a country with one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world.

He was known as the “Facebook Rapist” because he used social networking sites to lure his victims.

He was convicted in 2012 of the rape and murder of his model girlfriend, Nomhund Tiful. A year ago, he was convicted of raping and robbing two other women.

In May last year, it was reported that he was found dead in his cell at Mangan Correctional Center in Bloemfontein after an apparent self-immolation attempt.

However, local media began questioning Bester's death late last year.

In March, police opened a new murder investigation after further tests revealed that the deceased was not Bester, but an unidentified person who died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Employees of G4S, the British security company that operated the prison where he was detained, are accused of aiding his escape.

The company announced that three employees have been fired in connection with the incident.

Last week, representatives of the group did not attend a parliamentary meeting regarding Bester's escape. The BBC has contacted G4S for comment.

There have been numerous reported sightings of Ms Bester over the past year, including claims that she was grocery shopping in an affluent area on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where she lived in a rented mansion. There is.