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Murder of ‘stabbed, bitten’ Cape Town inmate probed, Mangaung jail killing ‘cover-up’ exposed

Murder of ‘stabbed, bitten’ Cape Town inmate probed, Mangaung jail killing ‘cover-up’ exposed
Thabo Bester appear at Bloemfontein High Court on June 05, 2024 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The suspects face charges including fraud, corruption, violating a body, and harbouring and concealing an escaped convict in the Thabo Bester case. (Photo by Gallo Images/Volksblad/Mlungisi Louw)
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
28 Apr 2025
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A Cape Town prison detainee died in February 2025. His lawyer says the wounds on his body suggest he was bitten and stabbed, and Western Cape police are now investigating a murder. This while four prison warders were arrested in another province in connection with another inmate’s killing.

Quinton Fortuin’s body tells stories. There are several tattoos on his slight chest — one on the right side is of a hand giving a thumbs up.

Lower down on his left towards his pelvis is the outline of a firearm. Beneath that, across his abdomen in a large font, is the word “warlord”.

Then there are the wounds.

Among them, a deep gash on his right cheek in line with his mouth, another shallower one beneath his left eye, a puncture wound on his left wrist, and a gash on his left ankle.

On an evening in February 2025, Fortuin, in his late 30s, was transported from the Goodwood Correctional Centre in Cape Town, where he was detained while a case against him was pending, to a hospital.

He was declared dead.

While Fortuin had attacked an official or officials in jail, exact details about the sequence of events leading up to his death remain sketchy.

At first the police opened an inquest into it, but this changed, and they are now investigating a murder.

Fortuin’s body provides clues as to what happened to him.

Investigation, gashes and sand


Daily Maverick has seen photographs of it taken after a postmortem was conducted.

The images show many injuries, including the deep gash to his right cheek, another behind his left ear, a wound at the centre of his throat, punctures and swelling.

There are also apparent grains of sand on his head and in his hair.

Prison and police officials are aware of the matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ottK8_eXO7Q

Last week, on Friday, 25 April 2025, Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo confirmed to Daily Maverick: “We can report that the internal investigation is ongoing and sub judice. In addition, the death of the inmate was also reported to other relevant structures to codify their own investigations.”

Fortuin’s legal representative, Labiek Samuels, who is trying to determine whether anyone will be held responsible for what happened to his client, told Daily Maverick that he was struggling to get thorough feedback about the death.

Read more: Four Correctional Services officials appear in court — eight years after the killing of a prisoner

He said Fortuin’s body had several stab wounds and apparent dog bites, and he reiterated that sand was inexplicably found on it.

Fortuin, a client of his for years who was convicted of some crimes and acquitted of various others, was a senior gangster.

He had been in the Goodwood facility for about three years in a pending matter relating to 2019. From what Samuels so far managed to ascertain, on a morning in February, Fortuin got into a fight with a warder and a bigger scuffle broke out.

Some inmates may have been unhappy about the treatment of certain detainees.

Initial inquest


One version of what happened to Fortuin is that after attacking a warder, he was attacked in self-defence, then taken to the prison medical section from where an ambulance was called, and he was moved to a hospital for treatment.

Last week Samuels was still battling to get records of his admission to the hospital and treatment there. And he said he had not seen obvious signs on Fortuin’s body of medical intervention. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpS9yXnlopE

“There was not a drip or injection mark… No sutures,” Samuels said.

While this could mean Fortuin was already dead by the time he arrived at the hospital, it creates concerns contributing to an unconfirmed theory.

This was that Fortuin may have died at Goodwood prison, after which his body was taken to the hospital to create the impression he died at the medical facility, which would have eliminated the jail as a crime scene.

In February the Daily Voice reported that Fortuin may have got into an argument and stabbed a warder, and that inmates alleged he was subsequently locked in a single cell where guards beat him and dogs were let loose on him.

At that stage, the police had told the publication that an inquest had been registered.

This implies that no one was viewed as being criminally involved in the death at that point.

Murder docket


On Thursday, 24 April 2025, Daily Maverick sent questions about the Fortuin case to the Western Cape police.

Spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm Pojie responded: “Goodwood detectives are investigating a murder docket following the death of an inmate of the Goodwood correctional facility during February 2025. 

“The inmate was declared as deceased on arrival at a medical facility on the evening of 15 February 2025.” (Daily Maverick has ascertained that this time — the evening — means that several hours would have lapsed if the fight in prison involving Fortuin happened the morning as Samuels, and other information, suggests.)

Pojie said the cause of death “is not yet known at this stage”.

“No arrests have been made yet,” he added.

Samuels heard from Daily Maverick that the inquest had changed to a murder docket.

He said that authorities should now focus on who was behind the killing.

Samuels felt that the extreme nature of Fortuin’s injuries exceeded what would have resulted from retaliatory self-defence.

Overcrowded crime hubs


Fortuin’s death is not the only one to recently spark questions about what is truly happening in South Africa’s jails.

And this all comes as conditions in correctional centres are under scrutiny.

Former Mangaung inmate Mpho Mkhumbeni. (Photo: MDN News / X)



Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale, the National Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)



Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Volksblad / Mlungisi Louw)



Last year, in terms of the Goodwood prison, a Parliamentary oversight visit was conducted there — at that stage the overcrowding stood at 53% with 2,497 inmates, and bed space for only 1,651.

There was also a high staff vacancy rate, with 56 posts advertised.

Read more: Jailhouse rot — SA prisons plagued by a cellphones, cash, drugs, knives and alcohol smuggling hub

Daily Maverick recently reported that prison overcrowding in the country stands at 155% and that jails have become overt crime hubs, with warders helping to smuggle in banned items and money.

National Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale had even told Parliament that, in terms of contraband entering prisons, “the biggest contributor is our members”. He acknowledged that while there were honest officials working in dangerous conditions, there were also “even gang members… in uniform”. 

Killing ‘covered up’


In terms of murders in jails, another case has culminated in suspensions, as well as the arrests of prison warders.

Earlier this month, on 16 April, the Department of Correctional Services issued a statement confirming the “unnatural death” of Mpho Mkhumbeni, an inmate at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein in the Free State.



Private contractor G4S runs the jail.

Operations at the Mangaung facility have before been under intense scrutiny, especially following the escape of rapist and murderer Thabo Bester in May 2022.

Read more: Govt ‘embarrassed’ by Thabo Bester escape as control of Mangaung prison taken from G4S clutches

Bester effectively faked his own death in a fire.

As for Mkhumbeni, the Correctional Services statement from earlier this month said that he had been serving a life sentence in Mangaung prison for a murder conviction stemming from 2014.

It said it was notified of his death on 12 March, and that Mkhumbeni had reportedly collapsed in his cell and was rushed to a hospital at the jail.

‘Unnatural death’


However, conflicting information subsequently surfaced resulting in an investigation being launched.

It allegedly established that on 11 March — the day before Mkhumbeni was reported as dead — a search exercise was conducted, but that the temporary manager of the facility was not informed about it.

G4S personnel known as the Dedicated Search Team also carried out a cell search earlier on the evening of 11 March.

After that they allegedly returned to the cell because a member had “misplaced a backpack containing R800”.

The Correctional Services statement said that during the return visit, four inmates were “interrogated, allegedly assaulted, and tortured over the missing money”.

Read more: Mangaung prison inmate murder — SAPS, prisons officials point fingers over failings in notifying next of kin

The Dedicated Search Team, the statement said, initially denied this.

It further stated: “The department’s investigation also confirmed that the events of 11 and 12 March 2025 are connected. 

“A sanctioned postmortem 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.”

This is where the Mkhumbeni matter somewhat mirrors the Fortuin matter.

Suspensions 


The Correctional Service’s statement about Mkhumbeni said the South African Police Service initially registered an inquest.

It was subsequently changed to a murder case. (An inquest being changed to a murder docket is what happened with the Fortuin incident.)



In the Mkhumbeni matter, at least seven prison officials were suspended.

“Senior managers, who were required to provide oversight during and after the search, failed to intervene or report the assault,” the Correctional Services statement said.

“Their claims of not witnessing the incident have been found to lack credibility. 

Prisoners during a raid by the Department of Correctional Services at Goodwood Correctional Centre on 18 July 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Jaco Marais)



Thabo Bester appears at the Free State Division of the High Court in Bloemfontein on 5 June 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Volksblad/ Mlungisi Louw)



“Even more concerning, G4S and its employees sought to conceal the truth and obscure the investigation. This is viewed in a serious light as it is tantamount to defeating the ends of justice.”

Daily Maverick emailed questions about this matter to G4S’ media address on Thursday, 24 April, but apart from an automated reply, did not receive a response to the queries by the time of publication.

Arrests


Meanwhile, last Wednesday, 23 April, the police service announced that four warders had been arrested in connection with the Mkhumbeni matter.

The police statement said Mkhumbeni’s death was initially believed to have been natural, and that an inquest had been opened.

“However, subsequent postmortem results indicated that Mr Mkhumbeni died due to unnatural causes,” it said.

This led to the arrests of the four warders, aged between 34 and 50 years, “for the alleged murder of the inmate”. DM



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