The desperate man who took a Home Affairs official hostage because he could not get an ID book is facing a bleak future.
He could be given a long jail term if convicted of kidnapping, but even if he doesn't he will be tainted by a criminal record for a violent crime that will hamper his chances of getting a job.
If convicted, he could be looking at anything from a warning from the court to life in prison.
For two years, 21-year-old Thibedi stood patiently in long queues waiting for the Department of Home Affairs to process his ID book, but on Wednesday his patience ran out.
On Tuesday, he had again been told by Home Affairs officials that his ID book was not ready.
According to his mother, Esther Zwane, he snapped and on Wednesday he stormed into the department's offices in Market Street, Johannesburg, with a toy gun, and took the department's supervisor, Lanelle Small (35), hostage.
Police say Thibedi grabbed her and locked himself up with her in a room for about six hours, demanding his identity document before he would let her go.
Just after 2pm, a Yfm news anchor took a call from Small.
"There is a man holding a gun to my head and he wants to speak to one of the DJs," she said.
The news anchor alerted police, and within minutes, heavily armed officers' including special detectives, snipers, members of the Crime Combating Unit and the hostage negotiation team ' surrounded the building.
Plans were also being made to prepare his ID book and get it to him.
While police worked at resolving the situation, Thibedi told the news anchor, Khanyi Magubane, that Home Affairs "are helping me today only because I have a gun".
"These people, they have bad manners, they don't treat us well here," he said. The hostage drama ended at 7.20pm with two loud explosions erupting at the building.
Moments after the blasts, which had been caused by stun grenades, silhouettes of Special Task Force Unit members could be seen moving through the smoke.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Chris Wilken said the grenades had been thrown to create chaos for the hostage-taker. "Just five minutes before, he had received the identity document, flown in by chopper from Pretoria, which he demanded when he took the Home Affairs official hostage just after 2pm. No shots were fired and he did not put up resistance."
Zwane said afterwards: "Home Affairs are unfair. All these years my son has been struggling to get his ID " yet they were able to bring it today. Why didn't they give him his ID book two years ago?"
Still, Zwane said she was surprised at the extreme measure to which her son had resorted.
"He is a sweet boy, not a criminal. He doesn't belong in jail. He was just desperate. This is not in his nature," she said. Thibedi had earlier told Yfm that he had applied for an ID in 2003 and it had come back with a mistake.
"I applied for another one but I haven't received it. They have been passing me from pillar to post, even telling me to go to Pretoria.
"I am sick and tired. I am hurt because I don't have anything to do. I am sitting at home. I wrote my matric in 2003. I can't find a job, I can't go to school, I can't do anything."
Thibedi said he wouldn't hurt his hostage but warned: "If I don't get my ID, something bad will definitely happen. I just need my ID, that's all I need. I have lost opportunities of finding jobs.
"I could have worked at Absa, I could have worked at Nedbank, I could have worked at the SA Army, I want my ID today (Wednesday). I have realised that I have to hurt someone today, and I want my ID today.
"These people are corrupt: they give our IDs to foreigners and then they are rude to us."
Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula condemned the incident on Wednesday evening and commented: "It can never be justified, it's just not acceptable."
Speaking from Botswana, she acknowledged that there had been service-delivery problems. "We have been very honest about our shortcomings but it would be dishonest to say we have not improved," she said.
Advocate Zaais van Zyl, who prosecuted kidnapper Donovan Moodley in the high-profile Leigh Matthews murder trial, in referring to the kidnapping saga said, "We're looking at a prison sentence of some kind, although the extent of it will be at the court's discretion."
"But the reason here is completely different to what you generally find in kidnappings for financial gain. The level of threat, a special police unit had to be called in, the man's personal circumstances, the fact that he did not use a real firearm, just a toy" all these relevant facts will be put into the melting pot," Van Zyl said.
In prosecuting Moodley, Van Zyl researched past kidnapping cases and the sentences imposed in different instances.
"There was one case with a political motive that received a relatively light sentence, nothing like what I was asking for with Moodley," he said.
"So it shows there's a wide range, and the facts in this case are different, so we shouldn't even try and prejudge."
The court, he said, could impose correctional supervision which could include house arrest, community service or other conditions.
"Sometimes for this sort of exceptional case, like when the man went into a bank with puff adders, you look at the intention of the person, the heinousness of the crime as well as the circumstances that are special, and then look at making that person rather contribute to society or go on some kind of anger management programme," he said.
Dr Mark Welman, head of People Risk Practice for independent risk consultancy Pasco Risk Management, said the incident was an indication of "the age of rage" in which people were increasingly resorting to violence, or threat of violence, to resolve frustrations and disputes.
"It's difficult to offer specific insights into Mr Thibedi's behaviour, given that we know very little about his background," Welman said.
But his actions were unlikely to be the result of a single cause of frustration, as persons who resort to violence or hostage-taking have reached a point of desperation in their lives as a result of multiple or repeated sources of dissatisfaction.
"Eventually, all of their anger and frustration comes to be focused around one person or institution, that comes to be blamed for all of the problems in the person's life.
"That person or institution then becomes a clear target," Welman said.
"There's a "tipping point", where one factor pushes the person to translate their emotional despair into aggressive or hostile behaviour and it's often channelled towards official bureaucracy."
Thibedi would appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court tomorrow and would "face the music", Wilken said this morning. He said Thibedi had been charged with "man-taking" (kidnapping) and possession of a firearm.
Wilken said Thibedi would remain in custody at the Johannesburg Central police station.