'IT'S NOT ME'

Sharing a name with a convicted rapist made life difficult for Thabo Bester and he's relieved his namesake is back in jail

- ISABEL VENTER

HE SMILES when we tell him why we're at his door, then invites us in. Hiding behind the walls of his house isn't something this Thabo Bester wants to do - he'd rather speak openly about the bizarre circumstances he's been embroiled in for more than 10 years.

And besides, he really does have nothing to hide: his only "crime" is having the same name as one of the most brazen and infamous criminals South Africa has ever seen.

It was the other Thabo Bester who was incarcerated for rape and murder, the other Thabo Bester who staged his death in a prison cell, the other Thabo Bester who went on the run and lived a life of luxury with his lover for a year.

This Thabo is an unemployed forklift driver from Ratanda, a township south of Heidelberg in Gauteng, doing his best to get by in the world.

He shows us his ID book and there it is in black and white: Thabo Lawrence Bester, born in 1985. The photo in the document is of a much younger man, but it's undoubtedly the man who's welcomed us into his home.

His troubles started more than a decade ago when police were hunting the man known as the Facebook rapist thanks to his modus operandi of luring women into his clutches via the social media platform.

"Back then [2011], I had to keep looking over my shoulder," Thabo says. "Everyone thought the police were looking for me I had to tell them, 'It's not me, it's someone else".

His relief was immense when the Facebook rapist was apprehended, charged and jailed for life. Thabo from Ratanda could finally live his life in peace and when it was reported three years ago that Bester the Facebook rapist had died in a fire in his jail cell, he thought the whole issue had well and truly been buried.

But in March it all imploded. Bester the convict was alive and well and, along with his girlfriend, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, was South Africa's most-wanted fugitive.