The Mangaung prison, which is run by private contractor G4S, and made international headlines when Facebook rapist Thabo Bester faked his death and escaped, is in the spotlight again.
This is after a prisoner who was serving a life sentence for murder was allegedly tortured and later died in hospital.
The Department of Correctional Services has identified the dead prisoner as Mpho Mkhumbeni. He had started serving his sentence there in November 2014.
According to the Department, G4S first notified it about the death on 12 March 2025, but the facts were twisted to cover up the cause of the death. An investigation later got to the bottom of the matter.
“At this stage, the following has been established: The contractor arranged and conducted a search exercise on 11 March 2025 without informing the Temporary Manager, an appointee of the Department of Correctional Services, who ought to have been part of the search operation. On 12 March 2025, inmate Mpho Mkhumbeni was rushed to the facility’s hospital and was declared dead on arrival by the attending medical doctor.
“This incident occurred after a cell search conducted at Wolds Unit, Street 1, Cell 6, earlier in the evening of 11 March 2025 by G4S personnel, known as Dedicated Search Team (DST). The investigation further uncovered that the DST officials returned to the Wolds Unit, Street 1, Cell 6 later that same evening after one of them misplaced a backpack containing R800. During this return visit, the four inmates in the cell were interrogated, allegedly assaulted, and tortured over the missing money. These claims were initially denied by the DST officials and the contractor,” the Department said.
The Department’s investigation also confirmed that the events of 11 and 12 March 2025 are connected and it was revealed that the prisoner was tortured.
“A sanctioned post-mortem examination concluded that inmate Mkhumbeni’s death was unnatural, caused by complications from pepper spray exposure and blunt force trauma, resulting in a formal classification of the case as murder,” the department added in a statement to the media.
The department said that following the above finding, an inquest case initially opened by the South African Police Service on 12 March 2025, was subsequently converted into a murder case.
It added that while G4S had begun suspending the officials involved, the managers remained in active operations. This prompted the temporary manager to take deliberate and bold steps, advising the controller to exercise his authority by withdrawing the operational certificate of Derrick de Klerk (Director Operations).
The five Dedicated Search Team (DST) officials fingered in the investigation have since been suspended following the incident. The officials are Anneke La Grange (Manager of Operations), Ida Malangabe (Security Supervisor), Mojalefa Petrus Maarman (DST Official), Boitumelo Mooi (DST Official), Cedric Motshabi (DST Official), Lebogang Martins (DST Official) and Mosioua Tanyane (DST Official)
