The government said on Thursday that a South African wanted for staging a prison break that humiliated the authorities and faked his death had been deported from Tanzania.
Thabo Bester, sentenced to death for rape, escaped from a privately run jail in Bloemfontein in May of last year, but South African authorities were only made aware of the situation last month.
Bester was thought to have burned himself to death while incarcerated, but in late March, authorities reported that DNA tests showed the charred bones discovered in his cell belonged to someone else.
Bester dubbed the "Facebook rapist" and given a life sentence in jail in 2012 for rape, robbery, and murder, attracted victims on social media before raping and robbing them. He killed one person.
According to a statement made by Justice Minister Ronald Lamola on Saturday, Tanzanian authorities detained Thabo Bester, a woman with whom he has a romantic relationship and a Mozambican collaborator, on Friday night.
On Thursday, Lamola declared that the two had been sent back to South Africa.
"We can confirm that these fugitives have been returned to South Africa" from Tanzania, Lamola told a press conference in Cape Town.
He stated that the woman was in custody until a court hearing later on Thursday. Early Thursday morning, Bester and the woman flew into a privately owned airstrip north of Johannesburg. Earlier this week, the woman's father was accused of killing the dead man in Bester's cell.
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