South Africa Bloemfontein Thabo Bester escape saga 11 May 2023. Nandipha Magudumana along with 5 others appear in the Bloemfontein magistrates court for their alleged role in the Thabo Bester escape saga. Magudumanas defence told the court they will not continue with the bail application for her today as there was missing information that was crucial for her defence. Her application was postponed to next week. Picture: Timothy Bernard African News Agency (ANA)
Johannesburg - Home Affairs says it wants to be a respondent in Dr Nandipha Magudumana’s court case.
The Free State High Court will tomorrow hear her urgent court application, in which she wants her arrest in Tanzania and deportation to South Africa to be declared “unlawful”.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said officials left on April 9 and when they arrived, they phoned immediately, informing them that fingerprints had been taken to check whether it was the same person who was incarcerated.
Motsoaledi said a report came immediately that the Tanzanians would never hand them over to police. They were given three days; hence a chartered flight was hired, costing the state R1.4 million.
He said his department disputes the allegations in Magudumana’s court papers. “We heard on the news on Friday that she was going to court on an urgent basis to declare her arrest null and void, and she said she was abducted. Home Affairs fetched her in Tanzania, so if any abduction took place, it could be involving or affecting us,” Motsoaledi said.
He said they were shocked on Sunday when they received the court papers and saw that Home Affairs was not cited.
“We found this very curious. How are we not cited when we are at the centre of this? We immediately wrote to Magudumana’s lawyers to raise the issue, saying we want to be part of this case. The case will be fatal without us.
“So we demanded to be cited in the case, failing which, we will challenge the sitting of this case on Thursday because we were asking please ... we were involved and we want to respond for ourselves,” Motsoaledi said.
He said Home Affairs went to Tanzania to fetch people who were deported. “We did not arrest them as Home Affairs. Most of the questions about arrests and all that must be sent to the police. When our chartered flight arrived in Tanzania, the immigration subjects (Thabo Bester and Magudumana) were handed over to the High Commissioner of South Africa to Tanzania, who handed them over to our immigration officials. That is our part of the story. For the other part, I’m afraid you might have to ask the police,” he said.
Among the charges levelled against Magudumana are aiding and abetting the escape of Bester, a convicted rapist and murderer. However, she has not been charged with contravening South African immigration laws when she left the country illegally.
“On our side, we leave it to the police and the NPA regarding the charges," Motsoaledi said. As far as they are concerned, Bester and Magudumana were declared illegal immigrants in Tanzania, and leaving the country illegally is a criminal offence.
Meanwhile, the five accused in Bester’s escape from the Bloemfontein Correctional Centre in May 2022 returned for the final stretch of their bail hearing before the Bloemfontein Magistrates Court yesterday.
Lawyers for the accused argued that it was in the interests of justice that Magistrate Mohlolo Khabisi granted the accused bail. Arguing against the bail application, State prosecutor Sello Matlhoko said all of the accused face serious counts of fraud, assisting in the escape of a convicted criminal.
Four of the five applicants failed to convince the court of their innocence in their role in assisting Bester to escape from prison, he said.
Matlhoko said despite there being a few members of the community gathering outside against the bail application, the release of the accused would result in a public outcry. Following the final bail application arguments, the court was postponed to today, with the magistrate expected to make his ruling.
The Star