Police: Inmate who escaped by faking death back in S. Africa

Published April 13, 2023 2:38 AM

By GERALD IMRAY and MOGOMOTSI MAGOME
Associated Press

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — 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 has been brought back to South Africa early Thursday 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 early Thursday. Police put the girlfriend into a separate van. She was expected to be charged with murder as part of an elaborate plot to get dead body into the prison where Bester was incarcerated to help him stage his own death in a fire.

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