The Department of Home Affairs is challenging Dr Nandipha Magudumana’s urgent court application regarding her arrest in Tanzania, with Minister Aaron Motsoaledi saying she – and her boyfriend, escaped prisoner and convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester – were lawfully deported from that country on 7 April.
He also revealed that the department plans to revoke Magudumana’s passport.
Magudumana had filed an urgent court application at the Free State High Court last Friday 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 an “abduction”.
Her matter will be heard in court tomorrow, reports The Star.
The deportation of Magudumana and Bester back to SA cost the state R1.4m. According to authorities, the pair had used fake passports.
It is alleged Bester was aided in his escape from the Mangaung Correctional Facility in the Free State last year by Magudumana, her father, Zolile Sekeleni, and five G4S security officials.
“In Tanzania, three passports were found on Magudumana; two belonged to Dr Mmereka Patience Martha Ntshani, and one belonged to her. It is a valid passport; we are revoking it in terms of the law because she no longer deserves to have it,” said Motsoaledi.
Ntshani is a well-known Gauteng doctor who goes by the name of Dr Pashy.
“Magudumana and Bester were declared prohibited immigrants in terms of the immigration laws of Tanzania and were therefore, as a matter of law, liable to be deported back to their country of origin,” the Minister added.
On Monday, he apologised for earlier statements he had made about Ntshani’s passports, after she sent him a cease-and-desist letter requesting him to withdraw “all defamatory statements and utterances” against her.
He said he “accepted” that Ntshani did not depose an affidavit when she applied for a passport in 2019 and that there are “no conflicting versions in the affidavits deposed by her this year”.
“I would like to extend my sincere apology to her. The statements were based on the information given to me at the time. It will be seen that the statements conflated the expired passport, the 2019 passport, and recent passport applied for in April 2023.”
However, he fully stood by his statements that Ntshani’s two passports were found in Magudumana’s possession in Tanzania.
Motsoaledi also confirmed that Bester had been issued with a South African identity card after an extensive investigation into his past, and revelations that he had never been documented or registered, reports News24.
The department also interviewed his mother, Meisie Maria Mabaso, reviewing birth records at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and data stored in the DHA systems.
The Star PressReader article – Motsoaledi insists Dr Nandipha's arrest legal (Open access)
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