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CAPE TOWN. — A man serving a life sentence for murder and rape who escaped from a top-security prison with help from guards by faking his own burning death was brought back to South Africa early yesterday after going on the run with his girlfriend.
The couple were arrested in Tanzania last weekend.
State broadcaster SABC showed video of Thabo Bester being driven from Johannesburg’s Lanseria Airport in a police vehicle with bars across the windows.
Heavily-armed police put the girlfriend, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, into a separate white van at the airport.
Magudumana was expected to be charged with murder as part of the elaborate jailbreak plot, which involved getting a dead body into the prison where Bester was incarcerated to help him stage his own death in a fire and escape.
A prison guard and Magudumana’s father already were charged with murder in connection with the body of a man found burned beyond recognition in Bester’s cell.
The unidentified man died of blunt force trauma to the head before the fire, police said.
Police and officials from the Ministry of Justice confirmed Bester and Magudumana were back in the country and said more arrests were expected. – AP
Online Reporter