…Researched and contributed by Solomon Thomas.
Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, disclosed in a briefing held in Pretoria, Gauteng, that convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester does not appear in any of their databases.
Motsoaledi explained that they found a 19-year-old Thabo Bester on the first database, the National Population Register, who presented himself to prove that he was not the one police were looking for.
They interviewed Thabo Bester’s mother, Maria Mabaso, who revealed that her son was born in South Africa on 13 June 1986 at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Gauteng, and she was registered as a Bester in the labour ward.
However, when she finally went to register her own identity document at Home Affairs, she used the surname Mabaso, which is her aunt’s.
Motsoaledi stated that Bester does not exist in the Home Affairs system because he does not have an ID and a passport issued by Home Affairs.
On Bester’s accomplice, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, Motsoaledi stated that she was found carrying two passports that do not belong to her, one of which expired in 2022 and the other set to expire in 2029.
The police minister, Bheki Cele, disclosed that Bester and Magudumana were found with multiple passports.
According to Motsoaledi, Bester’s passport had the name Tom Williams Kelly, which he claimed was an American passport.
Commentary:
This news is quite surprising since Bester was sentenced to 5 life sentences for raping and killing several women, and one would expect that such a person would be recorded in the Home Affairs system.
This revelation raises questions about the efficiency of the Home Affairs system and the need for better identification and documentation processes.
It also underscores the challenges facing law enforcement agencies in their efforts to keep track of criminals who may have evaded detection and capture for a long time.