Dr Nandipha Magudumana’s legal team will try to convince the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Thursday to Bloemfontein to free her.

Magudumana will appeal a decision by the Free State High Court which rejected his application to have his arrest in Tanzania declared unlawful.

In July last year, the High Court ruled that Magudumana had been brought back in a “disguised extradition”.

The court rejected her request, saying she consented to return to the country.

In the argument, Magudumana wants the court to immediately release her from the Bizzah Makgathe Correctional Center in Kroonstad.

She also wants the court to declare her arrest in Tanzania illegal and invalid, which would prevent South African criminal courts from having jurisdiction to prosecute her.

Magudumana wants the SCA to overturn a decision by the Free State High Court, which rejected her application to have her arrest quashed, on the grounds that she had consented to being returned to the country.

She questions this, saying that no one can consent to illegality.

As a result, the Home Office made it clear that she was not brought back by consent but through an agreement between the Tanzanian and South African authorities.

His lawyer, Machini Motloung, said: “We firmly believed that the application was well founded and the fact that it was rejected did not deter us. We have been convinced from day one that what happened in Tanzania had serious elements of illegality and that getting to this stage would ensure that the appellant gets justice.

Legal analyst Dikeledi Sinakgomo says Magudumana has a huge task to convince the court that she did not contradict herself.

While applying for bail in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court, Magudumana told the court that she was kidnapped by Thabo Bester to Tanzania.

“I don’t see any chance of success for Dr. Nandipha Magudumana to be here to win this case because she wanted to be released because she was kidnapped there, in Tanzania, and her arrest was illegal. However, if she succeeds, she will be arrested again. So it’s going to be a fun time and again she will have to be rightly arrested in South Africa.”

Motloung, however, remains confident about his chances of success.

“It’s been a long journey, I must say, and I sought permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal and that was done or granted in October. So you will understand that as of October, it has been almost a year, but there have been challenges along the way, mainly due to the fact that some parties have not really been able to cooperate. But we are here now and the matter is ripe and ready to be heard tomorrow. And we are quite confident,” says Motloung.

Magudumana is the number one accused in the prison escape saga of rape and murder convict Thabo Bester.

She is accused of helping Bester escape from G4S prison in May 2022.