Here are the pricey items Thabo Bester claims were taken during his arrest

Rapist and murderer Thabo Bester has again accused the state of seizing items belonging to him, this time revising the sum down from billions to millions.

The prison escapee made a brief appearance in the Bloemfontein magistrate's court on Tuesday together with his girlfriend Dr Nandipha Magudumana and 10 other people linked to his escape from the Mangaung correctional centre in May last year.

It was the second time he physically appeared in the court. The first was shortly after his rearrest in Tanzania in April with Magudumana. He has mostly made virtual appearances from Kgosi Mampuru prison in Pretoria.

Bester took full advantage of his physical appearance on Tuesday to steal a chat with his incarcerated girlfriend and her father, and to raise several issues in court.

The first related to his “inhumane” treatment at Kgosi Mampuru, where he claimed he was kept in his cell cuffed for 23 hours daily, and the second about the whereabouts of luxurious items that were taken from him at the time of his arrest including laptops, cellphones, jewellery and foreign currency. These are listed as:

• a marriage ring worth R350,000;
• a Louis Vuitton laptop bag worth R51,000;
• an HP laptop worth R41,000;
• a Samsung Z4 cellphone worth R40,000;
• an iPhone 14 Pro Max worth R36,000;
• a Macbook Pro 16 worth R34,600;
• a Samsung S23 worth R32,000;
• an iPad 16 worth R18,000;
• a Macbook Air 16 worth R12,500;
• a Burberry card holder and sunglasses worth a combined R27,000;
• Tom Ford sunglasses worth R9,500; and
• watches, including two Rolexes, worth more than R10m.

Cash in his possession in different currencies was listed as:

• R295,000;
• $36,000;
• 7.2-million Tanzanian shillings;
• 1.4-million Zambian kwacha;
• €500,000; and
• 100,000 Swiss francs.

“All these items I have mentioned were reported stolen by accused 5 [Bester] at the Lanseria police station. I don't have the case number for the matter. However, I feel it was prudent that we place the matter on record,” his lawyer Peter Matee said.

A Polo bag with clothes worth R750,000 was allegedly also among the items seized during his arrest.

The Sunday Times previously reported that around 2018, Bester had hired law firms around South Africa to uplift his file at the high court in Cape Town, allegedly with the intention of appealing his sentence and seeking a transfer to another prison. He claimed the Asset Forfeiture Unit had seized R3bn worth of his assets in a fictitious document.

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