Father of prominent South African doctor charged with facilitating rapist

In South Africa, the father of a well-known 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 he allegedly faked his own death and escaped from prison last May, leaving a body in his cell.

He was arrested alongside his lover, Nandipha Magudumana, a well-known medical doctor.

Her father and the prison warden are now charged with murder, arson and aiding Bester in his escape.

Zolile Sekeleni and suspended prisons director Senokhe Matsoala are accused of the deliberate murder of an unidentified person in March last year.

The two appeared in the magistrate's court in the South African city of Bloemfontein.

The defendants were not offered a plea and details about the charges were not released.

The case was adjourned until April 17 for possible bail application.

Bester was believed to have died in a fire in his prison cell in Bloemfontein and remained at large for a year.

A new autopsy revealed the body was not in fact his, and a search was launched last month.

He and the well-known doctor were arrested last week and are currently under heavy police guard in a prison in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.

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

Bester's escape has sparked outrage in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest rates of sexual assault.

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

He was convicted of raping and murdering his model girlfriend, Nomfundo Tiful, in 2012. A year earlier he had been convicted of raping and robbing two other women.

He was reportedly found dead in his cell at Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein in May last year, having apparently self-immolated.

But local media began raising questions about Bester's death late last year.

In March, police opened a new homicide investigation after further tests determined the dead man was not Bester and that an unidentified person had died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Employees of G4S, the British-owned security company that ran the prison where he was held, are accused of helping him escape.

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

Representatives from the organisation did not attend a parliamentary meeting about Bester's flight last week. The BBC has contacted G4S for comment.

Numerous sightings of Bester have been reported over the past year, including claims that he was grocery shopping in an affluent Johannesburg suburb and living in a rented apartment there.