Convicted South African rapist Thabo Bester has lost a court bid 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.
Bester was convicted in 2012 for the rape and murder of his model girlfriend Nomfundo Tyhulu.
Undetected for a year, Bester then allegedly lived under an alias in South Africa’s main city, Johannesburg, helped by his partner.
Thabo Bester, a convicted rapist from South Africa, lost his legal battle to prevent Netflix from airing a documentary about his life, which included claims that he staged his death to get out of jail.
Beauty and the Bester’s lawyers claimed that the show was defamatory, but the streaming behemoth defended its decision to make the three-part investigation public.
The documentary includes Nandipha Magudumana, a famous doctor who is Bester’s partner and is said to have assisted him in getting away. The court’s attempt to stop the release included her.
A judge ruled Friday that they had not proven their petition was urgent and that the rape case was “firmly in the public domain.”.
She did add, though, that the two could still file a defamation lawsuit after the documentary aired if they so desired. Hours after the verdict was delivered on Friday, it was made public.
In 2012, Bester was found guilty of killing and raping Nomfundo Tyhulu, his model girlfriend.
He had been found guilty of raping and robbing two other women a year prior.
Bester’s use of the social media platform to entice his victims earned him the moniker “Facebook rapist.”.
When he allegedly broke out of a maximum security prison in 2022, he was serving a life sentence.
Authorities discovered a charred body they believed to be Bester’s after a prison fire broke out. But it turned out to be someone else’s.
After going a year without being caught, Bester allegedly lived under a false identity in Johannesburg, the capital of South Africa, with assistance from his partner.
In April 2023, the two were deported after being apprehended while evading capture in Tanzania, an East African nation.
They are presently being held pending trial on a number of charges, including fraud, violating a corpse, and thwarting the interests of justice.
They haven’t entered a plea to the charges yet.
The court was asked to stop the highly anticipated Netflix documentary because the two claimed it violated their right to a fair trial.
A “self-created urgency” was used by Judge Sulet Potterill to describe the applications’ lack of urgency in her Friday ruling.
Bester and Magudumana “waited until the last minute” to file their applications as urgent, with plenty of time to do so, the judge said.
However, because the case law was unambiguous, the court decided that it was open to hearing their substantive redress, including a defamation lawsuit.
It is possible to file a defamation lawsuit and demand damages. The judge declared, “I cannot find in any way that the screening of the utterances they find to make the doctor guilty affects her right to a fair trial.”.
