By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The parliamentary portfolio committee briefing on the circumstances around Thabo Bester’s escape from the Mangaung Correctional Centre has been postponed.
G4S, the global security company which manages Mangaung maximum security prison from which Bester escaped, has questioned its exclusion from Tuesday’s parliamentary briefing on the escape.
On Monday, the company said it had written to parliament’s portfolio committee on justice and correctional services requesting a formal invitation to appear before the committee to address the escape.
Bulelani Magwanishe, the chairperson of the justice and correctional services portfolio committee, opened the briefing by reading from a letter sent by G4S, explaining its absence.
According to the letter, G4S could not appear before the committee without being issued a formal invitation. It said it was bound by statutory obligations in the Correctional Services Act and was therefore unable to issue public statements on the events of 3 May, or its cooperation with the subsequent investigations.
It said an official invitation would mitigate the obligations.
Much to the annoyance of the committee, the letter added that the private security company would be able to come to a hearing after Easter.
After comments from those present, Magwanishe said G4S would need to present first, and thus the meeting had to be postponed.
Bester faked his own suicide by fire, escaping from the prison dressed as a warder. The escape, which has seen three correctional services officials suspended and three G4S employees fired, allegedly occurred when the body of an unknown man was smuggled into the prison, stored in the facility’s kitchen fridges for two days and brought into Bester’s cell in the solitary confinement unit where it was set alight.
Postmortem reports revealed the person, who was burnt beyond recognition, had not died from burn injuries but from blunt-force trauma to the head.
The person also showed no signs of smoke inhalation with an accelerant, believed to be paraffin, detected by forensic pathologists.