One of South Africa’s most notorious rapists and murderers, Thabo Bester, has taken court action to block Netflix from broadcasting a documentary about his life – including how he allegedly faked his death and escaped from prison.
His lawyers argued that Beauty and the Bester was defamatory, but the streaming giant defended its plan to release the three-part investigation.
Bester’s partner, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, features in the documentary, having allegedly helped him escape. She is part of the court bid to halt the release.
The High Court is expected to give its ruling about 30 minutes before the documentary’s planned release to a global audience on Friday.
Bester was convicted in 2012 for the rape and murder of his model girlfriend Nomfundo Tyhulu.
A year earlier, he was found guilty of raping and robbing two other women.
Bester became known as the “Facebook rapist” for using the social networking site to lure his victims.
He was serving a life sentence when he allegedly escaped from a maximum security prison in 2022.
A fire broke out in prison, with the authorities finding a charred body that they thought was Bester’s. However, it turned out to be that of another person.
Undetected for a year, Bester then allegedly lived under an alias in South Africa’s main city, Johannesburg, helped by his partner.
The pair were arrested while on the run in the East African state of Tanzania in April 2023, and were deported.
They are currently in custody, awaiting trial on several charges – including violating a corpse, defeating the ends of justice and fraud.
They have not yet pleaded to the charges.
Bester’s lawyer, Advocate Moafrika Wa Maila, said the documentary infringed his right to a fair trial.
“There is not proof that he had escaped. He has not yet been convicted on this. There are many reasons why a person is no longer in prison, such as parole. The documentary is a kangaroo court,” he told the court, South Africa’s IOL news site reports.
The advocate also argued that the documentary’s very name, Beauty and the Bester, was defamatory and was deliberately designed to cast his client as a “beast”, the local East Coast radio reports on its website.
Netflix’s legal representative, Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, told the court that the three-part series gives victims a long-denied platform.
“This documentary gives the victims of Thabo Bester a platform to be heard after years of silence. To silence the film is to silence them again,” Advocate Ngcukaitobi was quoted as saying.
Judge Sulet Potterill asked Netflix when it intended to release the documentary, and said she would give her ruling shortly before then.
Bester’s alleged escape made international headlines and sparked outrage in South Africa, which has one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world.
