Magudumana gets leave to appeal extradition ruling

South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal has granted Dr Nandipha Magudumana leave to appeal against an order by the Free State High Court (Bloemfontein) dismissing her application to declare her arrest and extradition from Tanzania unlawful. In June, notes News24, the court ruled that Magudumana, who accused the police of abducting her, consented to return to SA and told law enforcement she wanted to see her children. Magudumana was arrested alongside her alleged lover, Thabo Bester, in April on charges relating to aiding his escape from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein in May last year. The SCA ruling follows a June High Court ruling by Judge Phillip Loubser, who dismissed the doctor's appeal for her arrest and extradition to be declared unlawful. In the first application, Loubser acknowledged that the process to bring Magudumana to SA was an extradition without due process and not deportation. However, he found that she consented to being returned. In July, the same court and judge upheld the first ruling. Magudumana's lawyer, Advocate Kessler Perumalsamy, argued that the case warranted a hearing by the SCA. Perumalsamy maintained that one could never consent to illegality, adding that it required someone to say: ‘I am okay with unconstitutional conduct.’