Footage showed a technician switching off the recorder at the Mangaung prison’s server room the night before Thabo Bester’s elaborate escape.
G4S found that between 7.38pm and 4.11am, several crucial cameras were not recording the broadway section of the prison where Bester had just been transferred.
Footage was recorded onto DVR tapes, but it was found that the recording had stopped leading up to the fire in Bester’s cell on May 3 last year.
The cameras came back online just after the fire was reported.
Integritron Integrated Solutions, the company which maintains the prison’s security system, told parliament’s portfolio committee on justice on Wednesday that they probed the malfunctioning cameras.
Internal legal adviser Dylan Williams explained that the company requires their technicians to check the systems before knocking off to ensure they are working accordingly.
But on the eve of Bester’s escape, a technician was spotted on footage entering the server room, Williams said.
“The video footage ... shows an individual walk into the server room at about 7.38pm. Minutes after, that system ceases to display any footage.”
The technician failed a polygraph test and has since been suspended.
“Today [Wednesday] we received information that this individual handed themselves over to the SAPS, and they are conducting further investigations,” Williams said.
Police confirmed the arrest of the 44-year-old.
Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said he was arrested in Bloemfontein on three charges of aiding and abetting, defeating the ends of justice and violating a dead body.
He is an employee contracted to a company that installs and maintains cameras for G4S at the prison.
Integritron elaborated on findings presented by G4S, who were summoned to appear before the committee on Wednesday.
This was after the multinational security company failed to attend the sitting scheduled for last week.
G4S revealed that after the fire was discovered in Bester’s new cell on May 3 2022, a cellphone and authorised laptop were found among his belongings.
Only inmates who have registered to study are permitted to possess a laptop. Bester was studying graphic design with Damelin.
Prison director Joseph Monyante said all of Bester’s valuables smelled of petrol.
But rumours surfaced last year that Bester could have escaped. G4S and the prison only received confirmation in February this year when the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services (JICS) informed them of the false DNA results. The results were, however, issued in August, which G4S had constantly asked for.
Despite G4S having a detailed timeline based on timestamps from the available video footage, they still do not know how Bester escaped and what caused the fire in the cell.
The company said they have, instead, left all questions to be investigated and answered by the SAPS.
In the meantime, three staff members have been dismissed. They include Senohe Matsoara, who was arrested last week for aiding and abetting in Bester’s escape. Two of the three dismissed staff were working in the control room the night the recordings malfunctioned.
Another seven have been suspended for allowing a wooden TV stand or kist to enter the facility on April 29 2022, just before Bester’s escape.
The TV stand is believed to have carried the corpse planted in Bester’s cell the morning of the fire.
The committee was told the TV stand was big enough to fit a corpse.
G4S audit and risk director Gert Beyleveld confirmed that a fight broke out just when the TV stand arrived. That meant officials had to attend to the scuffle, leaving one guard behind at the gate, who then let the vehicle onto the premises.
The wooden piece of furniture was moved to a workshop for repairs but has not been touched since then.
Instead, it was moved to a “safe place” this past Saturday, Beyleveld said.
“We gave it to the police for forensic investigations. They came ... and on Saturday they viewed the box and it was taken away,” he said.
The committee sitting will continue on Thursday with the JICS, SAPS and correctional services to make presentations.
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