Nandipha Magudumana escalated her legal battle to South Africa’s highest court on Thursday, 14 May 2026, as she challenged the legality of her return from Tanzania.
The case, now before the Constitutional Court (ConCourt), centres on whether her removal from Tanzania constituted a lawful deportation or an unlawful extradition.
Magudumana is contesting a May 2025 ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which dismissed her application for leave to appeal.
Her arrest took place in Arusha in April 2023, after she fled South Africa alongside convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester, who had escaped from prison.
Nandipha Magudumana challenges Tanzania arrest
Magudumana’s legal challenge began in the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein.
The high court found that her return to South Africa was effectively an extradition conducted without a formal process, rather than a lawful deportation.
However, it was ruled that she had consented to return to South Africa in order to be reunited with her children.
On that basis, the court held that her rights had not been infringed.
Her initial attempt to challenge the legality of her arrest was rejected in June 2023.
She subsequently petitioned the SCA before taking the matter to the ConCourt.
‘Disguised extradition’
During Thursday’s proceedings, Magudumana’s legal representative, Advocate Anton Katz, reiterated the argument that his client’s removal from Tanzania amounted to a “disguised extradition”.
“What the court is dealing with is a classic and clear case of an unlawful and unconstitutional disguised extradition,” the lawyer said.
Katz emphasised that it has been established as fact that the South African government had not made a formal extradition request.
“An extradition is a bilateral event between two states: the requesting and requested state. Every extradition constitutes an agreement between two states,” he told the court.
The lawyer highlighted that, in the immigration context, a deportation was an instruction from a state expelling an undesirable person.
“All deportations are unilateral acts; they are not bilateral. They don’t involve agreement between states.”
He argued that, in this case, there was clear evidence of cooperation between South Africa and Tanzania.
Katz also contended that the SCA’s minority judgment was “picture perfect”.
“It’s considered and it’s correct in every single respect.”
That minority ruling found that South African authorities had acted unlawfully through a disguised extradition and that courts could not ignore unconstitutional conduct.
It further held that the high court erred in concluding that Magudumana had consented to her return.
Watch the proceedings below:
Katz maintained that his client could not have legally consented to an unlawful act, arguing that such consent would amount to a waiver of fundamental rights.
He further argued that public opinion on Magudumana should not influence the ConCourt’s outcome on the matter.
“It’s the law that should sway this court as to what the correct result should be.”
In addition, Katz argued that South African courts lack jurisdiction to try Magudumana, and that she should, therefore, be released from the Bizzah Makhate Correctional Centre in Kroonstad, where she is currently detained.
State opposes application
Advocate Neil Snellenburg, representing the minister of police and the director of public prosecutions (DPP) in the Free State, defended the SCA’s majority ruling.
He argued that the claim of a “disguised extradition” was introduced too late in the legal process, appearing for the first time in Magudumana’s replying affidavit without a corresponding amendment to her notice of motion.
“The case that was made in the founding papers and the case the applicant seeks today cannot be married at all when one follows the sequence,” he told the court.
Snellenburg added that the manner in which the argument was introduced would prejudice the respondents.
Thabo Bester escape
Magudumana is currently facing criminal charges relating to Bester’s escape from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein on 3 May 2022.
Bester managed to flee after staging his death in a prison cell fire, where Katlego Bareng’s body was found.
The trial is scheduled to run from 20 July to 18 September 2026.
