The operator of SA’s biggest travel entry points by air says it has not been requested to help nab fugitive Thabo Bester and his partner Dr Nandipha Magudumana.
Airports Company SA (Acsa) CEO Mpumi Mpofu and the GM of the country’s largest airport OR Tambo International Airport Jabu Khambule said police have not given them identikits.
Mpofu said police were free to reach out to Acsa to seek help in nabbing Bester, who escaped from Mangaung Prison, in Bloemfontein, Free State, in May after faking his death.
Mpofu spoke to Sowetan on the sidelines of the launch of Border Management Authority (BMA), a law enforcement agency that will have powers to arrest criminals.
Sowetan last week reported how a bakkie drove into the maximum security prison in Free State with a wooden kist. The incident took place hours before a charred corpse was found in a single cell in which Bester had been recently moved to.
“We aren’t a law enforcement agency and we can’t create an identikit of Thabo Bester. The police must bring it and we will help them. That’s what basically happens with these fugitives, so that our people could see pictures of him.. normally we collaborate with them [the police], it works very efficiently.
Khambule said there is no identikit issued at the OR Tambo airport
“Remember Thabo Bester is a police matter. Jabu from Acsa is not going to arrest Thabo Bester,” he said.
“They [police] can say Acsa, because there is a fugitive, [give us] powers to put those identikits on the walls of the airports, and Acsa would come in and say where are the most strategic areas that we believe that if this guy were come to the airport, he’d go through.
“So, people like Acsa, immigration, and customs employees [and] all [other security agents] will then have that identikit... We would give the police the most appropriate places [at the airport] to put that picture.”
National police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe would neither confirmed nor deny that the police had approached the home affairs and BMA for assistance.
“We’re always working with various government departments and whether we’ve asked them for assistance [on finding Thabo Bester] it is neither here nor there,” said Mathe.
High-profile private investigator Chad Thomas has advised the police to distribute Bester and Magudumana’s pictures to speed up their arrest.
“[I] expect SA Police Service investigations to now be at an advanced stage. What is required is for SAPS to issue clear photos of both suspects, identikits of how they may look wearing different disguises, details of the vehicles that are associated with them, and areas of last known sightings. A dedicated hotline for only this case must be set up and manned 24/7,” said Thomas, a financial and organised crime investigator from IRS Forensic Investigations.
“Members from crime intelligence will be working all their confidential sources for information. Police analysts would be working around the clock analysing banking and mobile phone data, which would have been subpoenaed and thereafter served on banks and mobile network service providers on an urgent basis.
“This case is the opportunity for SAPS to showcase their skills and expertise and I expect that a breakthrough will be made soon,” concluded Thomas.
Home affairs minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said he was not aware if the police have asked his department for assistance,
adding that the department has launched a full-scale investigation into Bester.
“We have read in the news that he has many identity documents [IDs], and we are the ones who offer IDs and if one person has got many IDs it is an indictment on us. We wanted to go and check, and we started [the investigations] even before we were contacted [by the police].
“The second thing is that there is a human being who burnt there and obviously that human being must have an ID. The third thing is that if somebody has died, a death certificate must be issued and we are the ones who issue them. So long before we were contacted, we’ve started the investigations on our own and we are co-operating as all the department,” he said.
Motsoaledi said he could not disclose more information as they were yet to finalise the probe.
“We’ve already discovered a lot but we can’t disclose the information, and we’ll tell you at the right time,” he said, adding that if there were any home affairs officials implicated in the Bester criminal activities they would be hauled to a disciplinary hearing.”
Home affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said the department and BMA are working with police and other members of the justice, crime prevention and security cluster on a daily basis.
He said the department provides assistance to other departments when required.
sibanyonim@sowetan.co.za
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