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Senior G4S executives testified before Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services on Wednesday. They were confronted by angry MPs eager to learn how Thabo Bester fled the prison in May last year.
MPs wanted to discover how Bester was able to manage enterprises from his jail cell, how he maintained communication with the outside world, and why he was relocated to a solitary cell in the days running up to his escape. G4S regional director Cobus Groenewoud informed the committee that all cameras were operational on the night of the event, except for Broadway 35, where Bester was being housed, and the administration building.
The CCTV cameras stopped operating around 9:38 p.m. on May 2, 2022 and were operational again at 04:11 a.m. on May 3, 2022, the morning of the event. Senohe Matsoara, the on-site night duty supervisor who was later dismissed and jailed, failed to follow procedures, complete inspection rounds, respond to events on time, and ignored a call to respond to a complaint of smoke where Bester was.
He also failed to account for his activities on May 2-3, 2022. There were no smoke detectors at the complex, but CCTV video showed two anonymous people racing toward an administration building. Days before Bester's escape, an illegal automobile carrying a wooden TV stand was let into the MMC. The prison's audit and risk director confessed to the committee that the TV stand entered the grounds without being examined.
The claims that Bester had access to a laptop and smartphone in his cell when he was allegedly burned to death in May 2022 are the most crucial information in this book. G4S authorities claimed they didn't know when Bester was scheduled to finish his training, but it didn't make sense that he still had his laptop when he fled in May 2022.
Dr. Nandipha Magudumana paid monthly visits to Bester from 2017 to November 2021, and it was Magudumana who removed Bester's clothes and other possessions following his alleged death in May 2022. Magudumana also had the body of an unknown guy carried from Bloemfontein to Soweto, but authorities eventually retrieved the body before she could cremate it.
