A dejected Nandipha Magudumana sat quietly on the dock with her head hanging low as her legal representatives detailed her version of events that culminated in her arrest in Tanzania back in April 2023.
Nandipha Magudumana: ‘Thabo Bester forced me to flee to Tanzania’
Magudumana, who’s been in custody at the Bizzah Makhete correctional facility since she was deported from Tanzania on 13 April 2023, struggled to contain her emotions when her lawyer Advocate Frans Dlamini presented her bail application before the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court, on Tuesday.
For the first time since the inception of the Thabo Bester prison break saga, Magudumana revealed intimate details about her background, informing the court of her educational accomplishments and confirming she is, indeed, the estranged wife of Mkhuseli Oscar Magudumana, with whom she shares two children.
Magudumana, who, on two occasions, failed to declare her arrest in Tanzania an unlawful extradition, provided the court greater context “to how [she] departed South Africa.”
“On or about the 17th of March 2023, I was in company of Accused 5 (Thabo Bester). I was instructed and commanded by Accused 5 to get into a vehicle and leave the premises to a desitnation unknown to me at the time,” Magudumana claimed.
According to the 34-year-old aesthetician, despite her alleged refusal, Bester supposedly forced her into the vehicle and levelled threats against her, albeit no further elaboration was made about what exactly was said to compel her to abide by his instruction.
“I was defenceless, helpless and with noone to report to at that time. I complied with his instructions and was taken out of the country against my will,” Magudumana alleged.
The disgraced doctor stressed that, at all material times, from when she arrived in Arusha, Tanzania, and assumed several disguises, to her arrest on 11 April 2023, she was allegedly never in control of the situation.
“I was scared of the threats made by Accused 5. I submit that I did not voluntarily depart from the Republic of South Africa as demonstrated above. In any event, I had no reason to leave the Republic of South Africa,” she added.
Coincidentally, much like her lover, Magudumana still contended in her bail application that her arrest in Tanzania was unlawful and that her civil challenge was still ongoing.
Moreover, the disgraced doctor asserted her right to silence in the charges she faces, which include aiding Bester in his prison break and violating a corpse, and told the court she would, under no circumstance, reveal details about her activities in Tanzania.
Magudumana listed a medical practitioner friend as her host at a property in Sandton, Johannesburg, should she be granted bail. The doctor also pleaded with the court to cap her bail amount to R10 000.
When this article was published, the court was in recess.