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| ©Photo: Becker Simela |
The Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, has condemned the attempt by Nandipha Magudumana to have her arrest in Tanzania in April declared unlawful. Magudumana is accused of helping convicted rapist and killer Thabo Bester escape prison in May last year. On Friday, Magudumana’s legal team filed papers in the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein. On Sunday afternoon, Home Affairs director-general Livhuwani Tommy Makhode wrote to Magudumana’s attorneys to “demand that the ill-advised application be removed from the urgent roll”. Motsoaledi also revealed that Bester has since been given an ID card and birth certificate after 36 years of being “unaccounted for” on the Home Affairs databases.
By the Identification Act, Makhode wrote to Bester on 15 May 2023, advising that he had sent officials to help him get an ID. The documents were issued on 17 May 2023. Motsoaledi withdrew part of his statement last month, saying that Dr Mmereka Ntshani, known as Dr Pashy, had reported her passport stolen in 2019. Magudumana was arrested with three passports, one of hers and two belonging to Ntshani. Ntshani made another affidavit on 27 March 2023, saying she gave another valid passport to Magudumana and TK Nkwana, an assumed name of Bester, as they would apply for working citizenship in the United States.
Motsoaledi said Home Affairs had obtained legal advice that there are “strong legal grounds” to revoke Magudumana’s passport. He said Makhode will take “legal steps in terms of the South African Passports and Travel Documents Act... to revoke the passport issued to Dr Nandipha Magudumana on 16 February 2017 that is due to expire in February 2027.”
