On Thursday, correctional services officials took the media on a tour of Kgosi Mampuru and Kroonstad prisons where facebook rapist Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha Magudumana are being held. This, while speculation is rife that they are receiving special treatment. The tour was led by the National Commissioner of Correctional Services Makgothi Thobakgale.

At CMAX, Kgosi Mampuru, just outside the door where Thabo Bester is incarcerated, journalists could hear him shouting something like ‘Torture’. That is the only word Thabo Bester was prepared to say. Thabo Bester refused to speak to the media who were at the doorstep of his prison cell. Apparently Bester is fed up with the torture he is enduring in prison. Thobakgale says Bester has lodged a complaint and he will have a brief conversation with him to hear his complaints and allegations of abuse at Correctional Centre. Thobakgale further refuted claims that Doctor Nandipha Magudumana is receiving preferential treatment at the women’s facility in Kroonstad in the Free State.

Thobakgale says Thabo Bester is a high-risk convict is being held in isolation cells. Je added that Dr Nandipha is a high-risk and high-profile, awaiting trial prisoner, so she’s being held in the hospital wing of the prison in Kroonstad for safety and security reasons. Thabo Bester and his partner Dr Nandipha Magudumana will continue for now attending court virtually due to security concerns, Thobakgale says.