The wanted couple planned to flee to Kenya through the Namanga border.
At a briefing on Saturday, police minister Bheki Cele said the couple was arrested with a Mozambican who is believed to have aided them in their two-week-long run from authorities after news of Bester’s audacious escape last year from the Mangaung Correctional Centre surfaced.
“We received information last night at 10.07pm and we started working and converged today at 8am. Our forces, with the assistance of Interpol and crime intelligence, have been working on the Bester case. The people [Bester and Magudumana] were spotted leaving their hotel in a black SUV by those working on the case. They followed them and found them with a third person, a Mozambican national, and they found various passports on them,” said Cele.
The police minister said a team will be dispatched to Tanzania on Sunday to process the fugitives’ return to South Africa.
Cele said it was not yet clear what their movements had been up until they were apprehended on Friday night.
“But what is certain is that their method of entering Tanzania was illegal.
There is not a single stamp on the passports that they had when they were apprehended. They were 10km away from Kenya when they were arrested and it looks like they were heading for the next country.”
Explaining the difference between extradition and deportation, minister of justice and correctional services Ronald Lamola said: “That the pair were in Tanzania illegally means they will have to be deported back to South Africa.
“In Bester’s case, he was charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. He is someone who escaped from custody. The process should not be difficult in his case.”
The justice minister could not state how long it would take for the couple to be brought back to this country.
Earlier in the day police said a case of murder was being investigated after DNA analysis confirmed the body found in Bester’s cell, which was burnt beyond recognition and used to cover up his escape, was not that of the 35-year-old.
The autopsy also revealed the deceased died as a result of blunt-force trauma to the head and was already dead before Bester’s cell was torched.
A case of escaping from custody was also registered when it was discovered Bester was no longer in the department of correctional services’ custody.
The police and justice ministries held an emergency press briefing on Saturday, hours after news surfaced that South Africa’s most-wanted lovebirds, the deregistered doctor and her murder-slash-rape convict Bester, were arrested in Arusha, Tanzania, on Friday evening.
According to authorities, the couple was captured with a third suspect, a Mozambican man whose identity has yet to be unveiled, about 10km near the border of Kenya.
Early indications suggest Bester and Dr Nandipha, who were caught with several fake and unstamped passports, along with the alleged assistance of the Mozambican suspect, may have been attempting to flea to Kenya on Friday night.
While at the centre of the epic developments unravelling in Tanzania is the convicted serial rapist and murderer, eyebrows have risen over Dr Nandipha’s culpability in the series of crimes committed in the brazen prison break.
Since Bester’s daring escape, the Facebook rapist has relied on the assistance of well-connected and influential outsiders.
Investigative work compiled by GroundUp suggests Dr Nandipha not only played an advanced role in Bester’s escape, but she could also be complicit escorting her lover across the border.
Earlier this week, shocking video footage captured by private investigators showed Dr Nandipha’s cold and unmoved demeanour when she was questioned about her motive behind driving a R1.35 million car into Zimbabwe and dumping it near the border before returning back to South Africa.
Moreover, investigations into the deregistered doctor’s movements shortly after Bester escaped from prison in May 2022 could hold clues into her alleged culpability in smuggling, considering court documents prove she had submitted a bid to collect the charred corpse initialy thought to be the Facebook rapist as the customary wife.
More shocking, however, Police Minister Bheki Cele, during Saturday’s media briefing, confirmed Dr Nandipha had, in fact, submitted claims to collect three dead bodies at the time, a move which drew suspicion into the bizarre fire that broke out of Bester’s prison cell at the Mangaung max security facility.
With evidence mounting against Dr Nandipha, police confirmed that, at this time, the disgraced mother of two will be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive, while in Tanzania, she could be indicted for entering the country illegally.
Bester, on the other hand, will be at the centre of murder charges linked to the charred corpse found in his cell, which, it turns out, was not his.
