Johannesburg – Dr Nandipha Magudumana is challenging the legality of her removal from Tanzania in the Constitutional Court, arguing that she was subjected to an unlawful and unconstitutional extradition disguised as a deportation.
Magudumana’s legal team will argue on Thursday that Tanzanian authorities handed her over to officials from the South African High Commission in April 2023 without following proper extradition procedures. They contend the process violated her constitutional rights and that South African courts therefore lack jurisdiction to prosecute her.
Magudumana and convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester were arrested in Arusha, Tanzania, in April 2023 after being found in the country illegally. Tanzanian authorities declared her a prohibited immigrant and deported her to South Africa. She was arrested by SAPS on arrival at Lanseria and has since been held at Bizzah Makhate Correctional Centre in Kroonstad, facing 38 charges including fraud, corruption, money laundering, and assisting Bester’s escape from Mangaung Correctional Facility.
Her lawyers previously raised the “disguised extradition” argument in the Free State High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal. The High Court found that the handover lacked due process but ruled that Magudumana had consented to return to South Africa to be with her children, and dismissed her application. The SCA dismissed her appeal in May 2025, with a minority judgment upholding it.
Magudumana now seeks to have the Constitutional Court rule that her removal was unlawful, that her arrest and detention are invalid, and that she should be released. The State maintains she consented to return and that Tanzanian authorities acted independently in declaring her a prohibited immigrant.
The court’s decision will determine whether South African courts can proceed with her trial, which is set to run from 21 July to 19 September 2025 in Bloemfontein.
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