The Department of Correctional Services would not explain how the notorious “Facebook rapist” mysteriously set himself alight and “burned to ashes” while he was locked in a solitary cell at Mangaung Correctional Centre.
Sources from the Bloemfontein prison told The Sunday Independent that Thabo Bester was put into solitary confinement on April 29 and was found dead last Tuesday.
He was serving a life sentence for the murder of Johannesburg model Nomfundo Tyhulu.
According to a source, Bester had complained that there was a hit on him after he failed to pay a protection fee to the 26s gang.
Officials then placed him in solitary confinement “for his own protection”.