‘Brace for more weird revelations’: McKenzie weighs in on Thabo Bester saga

Patriotic Alliance leader, ex-convict turned politician Gayton McKenzie, has weighed in on “Facebook rapist” and murderer Thabo Bester's arrest, saying the public should brace itself for more “weird” revelations.

Bester was reportedly recaptured at a roadblock in Tanzania last week, weeks after a manhunt was launched for him and his partner Dr Nandipha Magudumana.

A senior police source close to the case told Sunday Times the couple was arrested by “sheer chance”. 

“The only thing harder than escaping from an ultra maximum security prison is bringing in a dead body from the outside. Do you even know how many manned gates you pass in jail to reach the cells where prisoners reside?” McKenzie asked. 

He claimed it would be near impossible to prove the alleged involvement of big and senior people during the escape process but virtually impossible to exclude them from the cover-up after the escape. 

“The whole prison from top to bottom knew that this was an escape and not a suicide,” said McKenzie. 

“To pull this escape off, at least 30 people had to be involved. Every former prisoner I speak to agrees. Who is Thabo Bester or what does he know, to be able to compromise so many people? His manner of arrest shows me he didn’t have crazy money. Brace for more weird revelations.”

McKenzie, who was in jail for a decade, previously said “something worse than an escape happened here” and warned that Bester could be killed in the process.

“First, I must state as a fact that many people were involved in this plot, 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 all three below-mentioned parties involved: politicians, prison officials and police. You needed the involvement of all three, you cannot pull this off without all three parties.”

He claimed Bester and Magudumana “will soon be killed”.

“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.”

Police minister Bheki Cele said a high-level team was in Tanzania to ensure Bester and Magudumana are brought back to South Africa. 

Speaking to eNCA, Cele said Bester would be arrested on arrival in the country. 

“The [most important] matter will be the justice matter. Ours is to arrest those people. I think the first thing that we will have to do is to hand them over, one I think needs to go to the correctional service. [He] belongs to the correctional service and one will have to follow the legal processes and all and that both falls under ministry of justice,” he said.