Joburg businessman Batho Bareng Mpholo, on Saturday, told Sunday Independent that it was his son’s body that was burnt in Mangaung maximum prison cell when Facebook rapist, Thabo Bester, escaped in May last year.

Mpholo, who owns a travel agency, Kambe World Travel based in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, said he became worried when his son, Katlego, disappeared without a trace last year.

“I am based in Joburg because that’s where my business is and my wife and children are in Bloemfontein.

“So when we couldn’t locate my son, I told my wife to go to the police station and opened a missing person’s case and we didn’t hear anything until recently when the police called and asked her to do a DNA test,” he explained.

He said the police did not tell his wife, Monica Matsie, what the DNA was all about and because they were desperate to find their son, she obliged.

“Forensic experts from Pretoria, again visited her in Bloemfontein on Wednesday for another test and we were still in the dark on what was going on until on Friday when the police, again visited the family and informed us that the results came back positive and that it was our son’s body that was burnt beyond recognition in Bester’s cell on the day that he escaped.

“I am devastated, my son was supposed to be turning 32 next month on the 18 and now he is no more and leaving behind two young children, aged two and three,” Mpholo said.

He said the family was meeting on Monday to decide on the way forward.

“We need to know the truth, why my boy, by who and why so we can have closure.”

Police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, said on Saturday: “The police can confirm that the charred body found in cell 35 in the Mangaung Correctional Centre has been identified following a direct match with the biological mother of the deceased.

“The family has been notified by the investigating officer.

“No further comment will be provided. As difficult as these news is, the SAPS is pleased to bring closure for the family.”

Mpholo also announced on this Twitter account that “the body that was burnt by Thabo Bester in prison was that of my son”.

“Our own government is failing us. I am broken.”

Mpholo told Sunday Independent that someone with more information about his son’s murder would come forward and give them more details.

Bester, who was serving a life sentence, escaped from prison in the early hours of May 3 last year with a help of some prison warders whom he allegedly paid R5 million.

Sunday Independent reported last week that while Bester was supposed to be in prison, he was spending romantic nights away with his girlfriend, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, in a five-star hotel in Durban.

After the news that Bester wasn’t dead but alive and living in a R12-million mansion in Hyde Park, Joburg, the two love-birds skipped the country and were arrested in Arusha, Tanzania as they were en route to Kenya.

They were brought back to South Africa last week in a private jet that cost the state R1.4m and they are currently languishing in jail.