The stateless man with no name is behind bars again.
The recent conviction and sentencing in the Makhanda high court of a rhino poacher and serial escape artist have once again highlighted how easy it seems to be for people to escape lawful custody in this country.
In fact, the case raised all sorts of red flags.
Attempts to link together the strange events leading to his conviction for crimes related to rhino poaching and repeatedly escaping lawful custody would raise the eyebrows of any fiction writer.
The man pleaded guilty in February this year to all the rhino poaching-related charges as well as to the crime of escaping from custody three times.
He agreed to a sentence amounting to an effective 20 years’ imprisonment.
After all, what is another two decades when you are already serving life — which it turned out he had been before one of his escapes.
Police, proud of the successful conviction and hefty sentence, issued a recent statement saying the man was a “54-year-old wanted fugitive Zimbabwean national” known by the names Thomas Chauke and Sazu Nkambuya.
Oddly, the indictment in the Makhanda high court named him as Zacarias Tapensi Muiambo aged 44.
But it gets stranger.
The indictment also said he was a “foreign national, illegally in SA” and was “known by a number of different names, with his true identity unknown”.
His first escape from custody was in 2017.
After being injured in a shoot-out with game rangers while trying to poach rhino in the Great Fish River Nature Reserve, he ended up cuffed to a bed at Frere Hospital.
He escaped when a woman sneaked in some bolt-cutters, allowing him to cut through his leg irons.
It is unclear when he was rearrested, but according to the police by 2020 he was serving life in the Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria for rape, kidnapping and armed robbery.
In December that year he escaped.
A quick online search shows that at the time the correctional service department issued a statement saying two men, named Thabo Zacharia Muyambo from Mozambique and Johannes Chauke from Zimbabwe, had escaped.
It seems the “Mozambican” Thabo Zacharia Muyambo was the same person as the “Zimbabwean” rhino poacher Thomas Chauke aka Zacarias Tapensi Muiambo.
No-one knows who Johannes Chauke was or what happened to him.
The criminal justice system works slowly and inefficiently.
Whatever his nationality, Muyambo/Chauke/Muiambo was rearrested in North West in 2021 for rhino poaching.
He escaped again during an appearance at the Zeerust magistrate’s court.
He was rearrested only in 2024, having clocked up another dozen environmental and other crimes.
Correctional services minister Pieter Groenewald claims the country has a very low escape rate.
But, if just one man with no name can escape custody three times, it is likely that the rate may be higher than he thinks.
The criminal justice system works slowly and inefficiently.
When it does get the rare win and a criminal is jailed, there is an obligation on correctional services to at least try to keep them there.
Daily Dispatch
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