My Tanzanian arrest was unlawful, says Dr Nandi

Immigration lawyer says she was subjected to a back door extradition

AN IMMIGRATION attorney believes the deportation of Dr Nandipha Magudumana, the girlfriend of convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester, was “unlawful”.

Magudumana on Friday filed an urgent court application to the Free State High Court in a bid to declare her arrest in Tanzania and subsequent deportation to South Africa for detention unlawful.

She also alleged that her arrest was as good as “abduction”.

She was arrested with Bester and a Mozambican national in Tanzania after fleeing South Africa while police searched for Bester.

They were nabbed heading towards the borders of Kenya on April 7. She is facing 12 charges linked to Bester’s escape from the G4S-run Mangaung Correctional Facility in Free State.

Bester walked out of prison in May last year after pretending to commit suicide in Cell 35.

It has been revealed that the charred body found in the cell was that of Katlego Bereng, who has since been laid to rest.

South African immigration attorney Gary Eisenberg said that Magudumana was found at the instance of South African authorities in Tanzania; they alerted their Tanzanian counterparts to the whereabouts of her and Bester.

“I think there was an arrest warrant for her for fraud and aiding and abetting an escapee.

“In my view, without reading her founding paper, it appears to me that the deportation was unlawful and that how she got to South Africa is really now the subject of a great deal of debate.

“She has said that coming to South Africa in the way she did was unlawful; it was a contravention of international and South African law, and she was subjected to a disguised extradition,” said Eisenberg.

He said disguised extradition, or through the back door, as some courts call it, is condemned by judicial officers throughout the world, including South Africa.

However, legal analyst Mpumelelo Zikalala, speaking in an interview with one of the broadcasters, said Magudumana’s chances of a successful application challenging her arrest in Tanzania were nil to none.

“Chances of the urgent application being successful are going to be nil to none because there are other alternative remedies, and there is an appropriate manner in which this particular matter cannot be sought on an urgent basis,” said Zikalala.

He added: “But what you can’t ignore is that there are rights at stake; there are rights that seem to be infringed at this particular stage, but there is a reason for them being infringed, and there is probably a vague explanation as to why they were infringed.”

Zikalala said the court could come back and say, on the basis of urgency alone, without even going through the merits of whether what Magudumana is saying is correct or not, “let’s dismiss your application because it’s not urgent according to us”.

Last month, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told MPs that the private flight used to bring back Bester and Magudumana cost R1.4 million.

Free State National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Phaladi Shuping was contacted to establish whether the NPA had filed responding papers.

“As far as I know, not yet. We received their papers at around 4pm on Friday,” said Shuping.