SA officials in Tanzania to repatriate Thabo Bester, Nandipha Magudumana

JOHANNESBURG - A South African delegation will be in Tanzania on Monday to secure the repatriation of convict, Thabo Bester, and his girlfriend, Nandipha Magudumana.

The two, and a third person believed to be a Mozambican national, were arrested on Friday night in Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border.

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Officials said that they didn't have entry stamps on their passports, which meant that they were in the country illegally.

Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said that Bester and Magudumana would likely be deported: "He has already been charged, trialed, convicted, and escaped from prison. So when he has escaped and he goes to another country, it becomes a clear case of deportation back to South Africa to continue to serve his prison sentence. We can then deal with the issue of escape and all those things when he's here."

Bester, known as the Facebook Rapist, escaped from the Mangaung prison in May last year.

He was serving a life sentence for rape and murder convictions but officials only realised last month he was no longer at the facility.

He'd been on the run with Magudumana since then.