Dr Magudumana's arrest in Tanzania was lawful, court rules

The urgent court application brought by Dr Nandipha Magudumana which seeks to have her arrest and detention declared wrongful and unlawful has been dismissed by the high court in Bloemfontein. 

The judgement was handed down on Monday morning by Judge Phillip Loubser, who said that Magudumana’s arrest was not unlawful as she had agreed to be brought back to SA from Tanzania. 

“In the present case I have no hesitation in finding that the applicant was well aware at the time of her handing over of the charges that could be levelled against her upon her arrival in South Africa. She nevertheless consented to her removal from Tanzania to South Africa because she wanted to be with her children,” Loubser said. 

“At the very least she had willingly acquiesced to her transportation back to South Africa. Based on the decision of the Appellate Division in the cases of December and Mohala, to which I have referred and which cases I am bound to follow, I therefore find that the application cannot succeed and make the following orders: the application is dismissed with costs, including the costs of two counsel who were so employed respectively the first to third respondents and the sixth respondent,” he added before adjourning the court session. 

Last Thursday, Magudumana’s legal counsel, Adv Anton Katz SC, had argued in court that her deportation was a disguised extradition in which there was collusion between South African  and Tanzania authorities. 

The disgraced celebrity doctor filed the application on May 19, following her arrest alongside her partner Thabo Bester and an alleged Mozambican accomplice on April 7. The duo returned to the country on April 13. 

Magudumana’s arrest comes after she was linked to Bester’s prison break from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022.