Dr Nandipha’s car clamped in Beitbridge

Dr Nandipha Magudumana has confessed in a statement to the police that Thabo Bester was “forcing” her to commit fraud. In a signed statement Dr Nandipha alleged that she was a victim and not an accomplice of Bester. She says she was kidnapped and threatened by Bester.

News sources say Nandipha Magudumana initially told Tanzanian authorities that she was being held against her will by convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester.

Bester, faked his own death with Magudumana’s help to facilitate an audacious break from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May last year.

The pair have been on the run since photos of Bester and Magudumana shopping for chicken in a upmarket Joburg Woolworths, surfaced online earlier this year.

They were caught in Arusha on Wednesday and were extradited to South Africa on a private jet on Thursday morning.

Minister of Police Bheki Cele told Parliament the request to transport prisoners on a privately charted aircraft came at the behest of the Tanzanian government .

 

Convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester arrives at court ahead of appearance.

Meanwhile, the case against the now disgraced Magudumana was postponed to 17 April for a possible bail application.

While she has not been formally charged yet, according to police, she will face charges of aiding and abetting an escape from prison, murder, violation of bodies and fraud.

During her court appearance, Dr Nandipha was joined by Tebogo James Dipholo, an employee contracted to a company that installs CCTV cameras at the Mangaung Correctional Centre (MCC), where Bester escaped custody after faking his death.

Fugitives car at Beitbridge 

Eyewitness News has seen footage of the black Mercedes Benz S63 AMG that Magudumana’s murder and rapist convict lover, Thabo Bester, is understood to have used the vehicle to cross at the border post in what was believed to have been part of a failed escape plan.

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The shiny black vehicle, with chrome trimmings and customised mags, can be seen at the Beitbridge border post with the rear left and front right tyres clamped. A security guard is stationed nearby to safeguard the car, which was recovered after being abandoned with false plates.

The vehicle, valued around R1.5 million, was bought by the socialite doctor. She paid a portion of the asking price while she still owed a Johannesburg-based dealership about R700,000.

Sources, with intimate knowledge of the case, told Eyewitness News that Magudumana obtained the vehicle soon before Bester escaped from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein in May, after staging his own death in a prison fire.

It is understood that Magudumana entered into a mutual agreement with high-end vehicle dealership Carbon Black Auto – where she put down a substantial deposit and was allowed to take the vehicle off the shop floor from their Durban branch – which has since closed.