Top politicians, police and prison officials involved in Thabo Bester’s escape from prison, says Gayton McKenzie

By: ANG Reporter

Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie has weighed in on the much-talked about movie-style escape of Thabo Bester, also known as the “Facebook rapist” from the Mangaung Correctional Centre.

Correctional services confirmed Bester escaped from the Mangaung Correctional Centre after it was believed he had committed suicide by setting himself alight in his cell.

The prison is run via a public-private partnership facility contracted to Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts, operated by security company G4S.

McKenzie, who spent 10 years in jail for armed robbery took to Twitter after being inundated with enquiries from curious South Africans who wanted him to shed some light on the scandal.

“I was in jail for a decade and understand that system, rules and it’s modus operandi. Something worse than an escape happened here, a murder took place,” McKenzie said.
“Firstly I must state as a fact that many people were involved in this plot. It is impossible that only those that have been mentioned so far are involved. The cover-up here is the second biggest crime.”

McKenzie said the cover-up couldn’t have happened without the involvement of politicians, prison officials and police. “You need the involvement of all three, you cannot pull this off without all these three parties.”

McKenzie said the easiest part of the puzzle to partly solve is the dead body. He added that what had to be established quickly was whether a dead body was brought from outside prison or whether a prisoner was killed. “It is very easy to establish this in a prison set up – do a roll call today.”

McKenzie explained that a roll call is when prison officials call all prisoners with their prison issued-identity cards. “Count and call out their names, if the number corresponds with the number of prisoners housed in the prison, then you had a body that was brought in from the outside. If the numbers don’t correspond then you have a prisoner that has been killed,” said McKenzie. “Both eventualities bring a lot more questions and widen the circle of people involved.”

McKenzie said moving a dead person around in jail without cameras picking it up “is virtually impossible”. He added that the fire that was started was a contained fire, “otherwise the prison would have burned and prisoners would have died of smoke inhalation”. “This happened in the past and a lot of prisoners died. I’m mentioning it to show that this was planned by very smart people with huge knowledge. You can escape from the prison building but still need to get past the many guards at the gate which are forced by law, to search all cars.”

“Thabo must have either left in the car of a senior official who might get way by not being searched or the officers at the gate were involved.” McKenzie said the inside of a jail consists of many gates which are manned by different wardens, each with a different key. “Only senior jail personnel have a master key that can open all gates. An investigation can show who signed out for the master key.” McKenzie added: “The biggest cover up happened the day after the escape. Big money must have exchanged hands for the absolute silence and unwillingness to investigate deeply. Planning such an escape and walking around in Sandton speaks of arrogance mixed with political cover,” said McKenzie. He said this showed that Bester knew he was untouchable.

McKenzie predicted that Bester’s supposed girlfriend, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, “will soon be killed together with Thabo Bester”. “You don’t pull such a brilliant escape without very powerful politicians, cops and prison officials. These officials and politicians are now hunting harder for the suspects.”

The PA leader called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to “urgently put together a team that should investigate and report back to the nation in 30 days. Concluded McKenzie: “The biggest that this team will discover is that most murders on the outside are being committed by people on the inside. I will give advise to the team for free.”