DCS
Convicted killer Thabo Bester will be under 24-hour surveillance at the C-Max section of Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Centre in Pretoria following his deportation from Tanzania.
Bester and his so-called partner-in-crime, Dr Nandipha Magudamana, arrived back in the country in the early hours of Thursday morning following their arrest in that country over the Easter weekend.
Magudamana was due to make her first court appearance in Bloemfontein, also on Thursday.
The National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Makgothi Thobakgale, told a briefing that the Pretoria institution was the nearest facility with all the security measures needed to ensure that he "does not harm himself" or that he is "not harmed" by any other person.
"The most appropriate facility was identified to be Kgosi Mampuru," he added.
Thobakgale said,"We are placing a 24/7 surveillance on him, we are also placing a 24/7 contact with him with selected highly-trained Correctional Services officials to ensure that whatever circumstance he finds himself in, we will be first on call to attend to that but to ensure that we do not experience any security breach."
Commissioner Thobakgale said the section of the prison where Bester will be held, housed "high-profile and high-risk offenders" over time without any security breaches.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Justice and Corrections, Ronald Lamola, clarified Bester's access to a laptop computer, following revelations during Parliamentary hearings on Wednesday.
He said a section of the Correctional Services Act allowed prisoners who are studying to have access to laptop computers, without a modem.
Lamola said Section 41 of the Correctional Services Act says the Department must "provide access to as full a range of programmes and activities, including needs-based programmes as is practically possible to meet the educational and training needs of the sentenced offender."
The Minister said a court judgment in this regard also instructed the Department to allow inmates to use their personal laptops in single cells without the use of a modem and that these devices shall be made for inspection at any given time.
"The applicants will have use of their laptops in their single cells for as long as they remain registered students with a recognised tertiary institution in South Africa."
Lamola said they are "duty-bound" to comply with that court order.
Meanwhile, in a short statement on Bester's return to the country, Lamola and Police Minister, Bheki Cele, thanked the government of Tanzania "for its unequivocal co-operation in the matter which relates to the arrest and process of deportation of Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha Magudumana."
"We will endeavour to emulate this level of cooperation with other countries in areas of mutual legal assistance and related matters," they said.
