The girlfriend of murderer and convicted rapist Thabo Bester, Dr. Nandipha Magudumana, will have her passport revoked by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). According to investigations, in 2022, Bester received assistance from Magudumana, her father Zolile Sekeleni, and five G4S security personnel to escape from the Mangaung Correctional Facility in the Free State. After learning that he was wanted by the police for his mischievous escape, Magudumana and Bester left South Africa.
The duo is thought to have been photographed shortly after his escape by a bystander as they made grocery purchases in a Johannesburg supermarket. According to the Department of Correctional Services’ assessment from May 2022, Bester did not actually die in cell 35. Instead, the burnt body was that of 32-year-old Katlego Berent. The two were allegedly in possession of false passports when they were arrested in Tanzania on April 7, 2023. They were later deported to South Africa. The state spent a staggering R1.4 million on the trip.
“The Department of Home Affairs has obtained legal advice that there are strong legal grounds to revoke the passport of Dr Magudumana and that firm action must be taken to that effect,” said DHA Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.
He declared that the director would take two legal actions to cancel the passport issued to Magudumana on February 16, 2017, which is set to expire on February 15, 2027, in accordance with the South African Passports and Travel Documentation Act No. 4 of 1994, read with pertinent regulations. When questioned about the necessity of revoking Magudumana’s passport, Motsoaledi said that it is mandated by law.
“I need to explain this. You are aware that in Tanzania, three passports were found on Magudumana; two of the passports belonged to Dr Mmereka Patience Martha Ntshani, and one belonged to her. It is a valid passport; this is the passport we are revoking in terms of the law because she no longer deserves to have it,” he said.
Ntshani a well known celebrity doctor who also goes by Dr. Phashy, sent Motsoaledi a cease-and-desist letter, demanding an apology for the remark he made about her involvement in the Bester escape. She denied having any part in Bester’s heist. Magudumana sought to have her arrest in Tanzania and subsequent deportation to South Africa for custody declared unconstitutional on Friday by submitting an urgent court appeal to the Free State High Court. Additionally, she claimed that her arrest amounted to a “abduction”.
On Monday, Motsoaledi additionally revealed that department representatives were a part of a multidisciplinary group that traveled to Tanzania to repatriate Magudumana and Bester after they had been identified as illegal immigrants there and given a three-day deadline to leave. The process, according to him, was lawful and there was “something sinister” about the fact that Magudumana failed to mention the DHA or minister in the most recent court documents, which according to Motsoaledi, they were only able to obtain late on Sunday afternoon.
He said that the department only learned about Magudumana’s court application from media reports over the weekend and that it has since written to Magudumana’s attorneys to request that the department be mentioned in the proceedings. Mostoaledi claimed that Bester had received an identity card last week and that his name has since been added to the National Population Register, ending the many years in which he had been unable to be identified.
