The Bloemfontein High Court has dismissed Dr Nandipha Magudumana's urgent application to declare her "deportation" from Tanzania unlawful.

Judge Phillip Loubser, however, found the "deportation" was, in fact, a "disguised extradition" but ultimately found against Magudumana because she had willingly consented to leave the country.

Magudumana fled South Africa with her lover, rapist and killer Thabo Bester, in April.

Bester was serving a life sentence in the Manguang Correctional Centre when he escaped in May 2022 after orchestrating a fake suicide by fire.

The couple was tracked to Tanzania and "deported" to South Africa on 13 April 2023.

Magudumana is accused of fraud, defeating the ends of justice, violating a body, and aiding and abetting an inmate to escape from lawful custody, corruption and arson.

On Monday, Loubser found that because a South African delegation willingly participated in the handing over of Magudumana and Bester on 12 April in Tanzania, and because they knew the handing over would be for purposes of her prosecution, they were extraditing Magudumana and not deporting her.

He made the distinction that extradition usually involved the handing over of a person who was accused or convicted of a crime, and deportation was the removal of an unwanted person from a country.

Deportation is usually unilateral, and extradition usually occurs between nations.

Loubser said:

What they did not realise was that such a handing over was, in fact, an extradition without any process and not a deportation.

"This is not the end of the matter".

He added that when Magudumana was handed over at the Tanzanian airport by the South African High Commission to Department of Home Affairs officials, she offered no resistance.

"On the contrary, she informed all and sundry that she wanted to return to South Africa to her children."

Loubser dismissed the application with costs.

Meanwhile, Magudumana's lawyers said they would visit their client on Tuesday for further instructions.