Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi this morning confirmed that convicted murderer, and rapist, Thabo Bester is a South African citizen.
Motsoaledi who addressed the media on the arrest of Bester and his accomplice, Dr Nandipha Magudumana in Pretoria, said the confusion about Bester’s citizenship was because he was never officially documented as a South African with the Department of Home Affairs, since he had disappeared at the age of 16.
The Minister blamed Bester’s complicated upbringing for the failure of his mother, Maria Mabaso to register him after giving birth at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital on 13 June 1986.
“Maisie Maria who gave birth to Thabo was taken at the age of 37 to Home Affairs. She was then registered there as Mabaso, in other words, she took the surname of the person who was registering her.
“She forgot about being a Magagula or a Bester and registered herself as Maisie Mabaso. But when you go to Baragwanath hospital records of 37 years ago she is Maisie Bester.
“She then decided right there and then, that since I am registered, let me register my kids also and she registered them under the same surname of the aunt who had registered her. All the three kids who registered with the department suddenly became Mabasos and no longer Besters. And that is where some of the things got lost.
“Now the question is why didn’t you register Thabo? She said no it was 2006 and Thabo was already 16-years-old. That is when he disappeared and no one knew where he was. And that is why the mother could not register him anywhere,” Motsoaledi said.
Motsoaledi said the department was able to verify Thabo’s identification from his previous school attendance records.
“But she was able to tell us the school, which he had attended because when we met her she insisted that Thabo had passed Grade 3. We did go to the school, which Thabo attended. It is in the South of Johannesburg and called Laerskool Danie Theron.
“Yes indeed it’s true, Thabo registered there on the 14 of January 1997 without any birth certificate. They just registered him with his date of birth, which is correct the 13th of June 1986 it corresponds exactly with what is in the labour ward at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Thabo attended there like his mother has said and left that school in 2002.
“Thabo went up to Grade 5 and there was no other indication that he passed the Grade since then because he disappeared from the school. But it looks like he disappeared from his mother in 2006, which is four years later. The mother then only met him again in 2011 when he was arrested,” he said.
Motsoaledi said Bester was arrested in possession of an American passport under the guise of Tom Williams Kelly when he was arrested in Tanzania last week.
Motsoaledi said Bester was arrested in possession of an American passport under the guise of Tom Williams Kelly when he was arrested in Tanzania last week.
He said the details of how the couple crossed to another country were subject to police investigations, as the department has no records of them crossing at the country’s borders. Motsoaledi asserted the country had no business with a Mozambique citizen, who was found with the pair.
Bester known as the “Facebook rapist” for using the social networking site to lure his victims, was convicted in 2012 for raping and murdering his model girlfriend, Nomfundo Tyhulu. He was also found guilty of robbing and raping two other women.
A manhunt was launched last month after the convicted rapist escaped from a private maximum security prison in Mangaung, Free State allegedly with the help of his girlfriend Magudumana by feigning his own death by burning a body in his cell.
Magudumana later claimed the body as her relative, after the Police confirmed it was not that of Bester.
It was also alleged Magudumana claimed two other bodies from the morgues as her relatives. One body was allegedly found floating in the river with a Free State morgue tag on it, a body that she had allegedly claimed for burial.
