Dr Magudumana’s arrest in Tanzania was lawful, court rules. The high court in Bloemfontein dismissed Dr. Nandipha Magudumana‘s urgent court case, which sought to have her arrest and detention declared unjust and unlawful.

Magudumana had consented to be taken back to South Africa from Tanzania, according to Judge Phillip Loubser, who delivered the ruling on Monday morning.

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

“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.

Magudumana’s attorney, Adv Anton Katz SC, had argued in court on last Thursday that her deportation was actually a disguised extradition in which Tanzanian and South African officials had collaborated.

The application was submitted on May 19 by the disgraced celebrity doctor, who had been arrested on April 7 together with her partner Thabo Bester and an alleged accomplice from Mozambique. The pair arrived back in the nation on April 13.

Magudumana was detained after it was discovered that she was involved in Bester’s escape from the Mangaung Correctional Center in May 2022.