Born at Bara to mom of four, but Thabo Bester was never registered with home affairs

Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi has confirmed the identity of “Facebook rapist” and murderer Thabo Bester but says there is no record of him at the department and he “simply doesn't exist” on their database.

Motsoaledi revealed this at a briefing on Friday that provided the home affairs records on Bester and his lover, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana.

It comes a day after the justice and police ministries held a briefing addressing the deportation process of bringing the couple back to South Africa from Tanzania after they went on the run. They also appeared before parliament's justice and correctional services portfolio committee.

Police commissioner Lt-Gen Fannie Masemola said Bester had no South African ID but said they were able to confirm it's him through his fingerprints and criminal record.

Motsoaledi confirmed this, as he provided Bester's family history from birth until his initial arrest in 2011.

The minister said the convict was born in June 1986 at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital as Thabo Bester to Meisie Maria Bester. He is the oldest of four children.

“[Bester's] mother was never registered when she was born [in 1965]. In other words, she had no birth certificate, no ID when she was 37 in 2002. In 2002, her mother passed on and her aunt decided to take Bester's mother for registration. In other words, they did a late registration of birth."

Motsoaledi said she took on her aunt's surname and not the one she used when she gave birth to Bester. 

"She then decided there that 'since I'm registered', let me register my kids also and she registered them under the same surname of the aunt. All the three kids registered suddenly became Mabaso, no longer Besters. They got their birth certificates, they got their IDs."

She explained that she couldn't register Bester because he had disappeared at that stage.

Tracing his childhood, Motsoaledi confirmed Bester registered for school in 1997 but only completed grade 5. His mother maintained Bester only completed grade 3, then known as standard 1. 

He apparently left school in 2002 when his maternal grandmother died and last had contact with his mother in 2006, until 2011 when he was arrested.

“So as I said, Bester never registered with home affairs at any stage.  The only place you could find him, as police said, was in correctional services when he was an inmate - that's where you will find his fingerprints....

"Otherwise, in terms of registration, in the civil manner, the only other place where you could find Bester is Chris Baragwanath hospital in the records that are now 37 years old. So as we've said, because Bester never took an ID, never married, never took a passport in home affairs, he simply did not exist in our systems. Bester doesn't have any passport with home affairs,” Motsoaledi said.

He also traced Magudumana's history, saying she was easy to find through the population register.

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