Thabo Bester, the convicted rapist and murderer who faked his death before escaping a South African prison, lost a court bid to block Netflix from releasing a documentary about his life.
Bester and his celebrity doctor partner Nandipha Magudumana were seeking to halt the three-part “Beauty and the Bester” documentary, arguing that it was defamatory and violated their rights to a fair trial, AFP reported.
But on Friday, Judge Sulet Potterill dismissed the application, stating that the rape case was “firmly in the public domain” and that the two had failed to prove that their petition was urgent.
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The judge however said that they could go ahead and sue for defamation if they wished, after the documentary is released.
Bester was arrested in Tanzania in April 2023 after being on the run for a year. According to the BBC, it was initially thought that Bester had passed away in his prison cell after setting himself on fire.
Known as the “Facebook rapist” as he lured his victims through the site, Bester was convicted in 2012 after he was found guilty of raping and killing his girlfriend. He was also accused of raping and robbing two other women the year prior.
He was serving a life sentence at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein when he was supposedly found dead in his cell when a fire broke out in 2022. Authorities launched a new murder investigation after it was established that the dead person was not Bester. That individual had died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head before the prison was set ablaze.
Authorities ultimately launched a manhunt for prison escapee Bester, who was then allegedly living under an alias in the South African city of Johannesburg with the help of his partner. The two were arrested while they were suspected to be planning to flee to Kenya.
They are now in custody, awaiting trial on several charges, including violating a corpse, defeating the ends of justice and fraud, BBC reported. They have not yet pleaded to the charges.
The documentary about Bester was released hours after Friday’s ruling.
