NPA ready for ConCourt battle should Magudumana choose to escalate bid for freedom

JOHANNESBURG - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said it would be fully armed for a Constitutional Court battle should Dr Nandipha Magudumana choose to escalate her bid for freedom to the apex court.

Magudumana’s appeal was dismissed in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Friday, with the majority of the justices rejecting her claim that her deportation from Tanzania was a disguised extradition.

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The disgraced doctor was brought back to South African soil in April 2023 after she was captured while on the run with convicted killer Thabo Bester.

He escaped from the Mangaung Prison where he was serving a life sentence.

Her lawyers said she had not decided whether to take her bid to the highest court in the land.

But the NPA’s Mthunzi Mhaga said they were ready.

"We are ready to release our legal prowess, our prosecutorial arsenal to make sure they lose at the apex court as well."

He said this makes the NPA even more confident ahead of Magudumana and Bester’s trial in July.

"It has injected a sense of resoluteness to ensure that what we seek to do for the victims of crime is realised."