Correctional services confirms Karabo Mokoena’s murderer, Sandile Mantsoe, hasn’t escaped from jail and wasn’t spotted in Braamfontein

The department said at about 4.35pm on Monday it asked for an assurance that Mantsoe was still in custody. 

“He is at Standerton Correctional Centre with other charged offenders to make a total of eight in the cell. He is at the centre and he never went out today.”

The department said his next court appearance is on October 18 in the Evander magistrate’s court. While serving his sentence, Mantsoe was requisitioned from Bloemfontein prison in August last year after an investigation by the Hawks in Middelburg linked him to an investment fraud case in Evander, Mpumalanga. 

The Hawks said during December 2016 Mantsoe visited government offices and allegedly recruited about 180 people to invest more than R2m for a high return. He allegedly did not make payments to his clients as promised. The correctional services department on Monday rubbished claims that Sandile Mantsoe, who was sentenced to 32 years in jail for killing Karabo Mokoena, had escaped from prison.

Department spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said Mantsoe was locked up at Standerton Prison in Mpumalanga.

“Sandile is in prison,” Nxumalo said after Twitter users claimed they had seen Mantsoe outside of prison.

Nxumalo warned that these allegations could “give more gravitas to a fake story”.