Escape from Mangaung
In 2006, Ananias Mathe, the man dubbed Houdini, supposedly rubbed Vaseline all over his body, before slipping through a small window of his cell of the C-max prison at the Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Facility in Pretoria and escaping.
The truth was a little more boring, though still dire.
The serial rapist, robber and murderer paid an R80 000 bribe to warders for his freedom, according to media reports. It wasn't the first time either. Mathe, who died in 2016, previously bribed his way out of a high-security cell at the Johannesburg Central prison. This after his gang members paid a police officer R15 000 to enable Mathe to break out.
Like Mathe, the man known as the "Facebook rapist", Thabo Bester, obviously felt he wasn't cut out for prison life, despite his crimes.
In an elaborate scheme, which has revealed just how dysfunctional our state system is, Bester escaped from another high security facility, Mangaung Correctional Centre in the Free State, on 3 May 2022.
During two days of grilling by Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services, it become clear this week that the government was aware from October last year that Bester did not perish in a fire in a single cell at the facility, and that the body found in the cell, in fact, belonged to someone else.
Despite having this information, efforts to track down Bester and his accomplice Dr Mandipha Magudumana only got under way after GroundUp reported on the matter in March of this year. Bester was so brazen after the escape, he lived the high life in a street not far from where President Cyril Ramaphosa lives in a leafy Johannesburg suburb.
And while we despair over how this happened in the first place, there are several heroes in this story that need to be celebrated. News agency GroundUp deserves many accolades for pushing ahead, and investigating the matter after receiving a tip-off.
Then there also two hero cops. One red-flagged the fact that Dr Magudumana had taken possession of multiple bodies from the morgue, leading to her making an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg. Another police official then notified the State Attorney of that application - which resulted in the filing of the answering affidavit that blew the whole case open.
In this week's edition of Friday Briefing, we examine how this whole saga reveals how corruption has crept into every sector of our mafia state.
We have submissions from independent investigative journalist Ruth Hopkins who has warned of the depth of corruption at Mangaung, which is privately run by G4S, for years. Again, little was done. In-depth writer Muhammad Hussain speaks to Dr Harlan Cloete from the University of the Free State on how concerned we should be that the state isn't functioning as it should. Finally, GroundUp's editor Nathan Geffen writes on how his news agency managed to break the story.
No need to tell you, but it is an essential read.
Best,
Vanessa Banton
Opinions editor.
Mangaung prison: What does accountability look like?
In the wake of the Thabo Bester escape, it was thought the contract with G4S, which runs Mangaung prison, would be terminated. But that hasn't happened yet. Ruth Hopkins asks where is the accountability.
Bester escape reveals that we are stuck with leaders who aren't leading
As the unravelling of the Thabo Bester scam, escape, chase and recapture continues to awe us with audacious details, unimaginable oversights and pure greed, we ask governance expert Dr Harlan Cloete if this saga is a prime example of the state's failures.
A Bonnie and Clyde tale: Why GroundUp investigated Thabo Bester story
Small news agency GroundUp is not known for covering salacious stories like this Bonnie and Clyde tale. GroundUp's editor, Nathan Geffen, explains the reason they took on the story.
