Possible parole for drug muleTessa

JUST weeks after her mother Marie Swanepoel’s death, South Coast drug mule Tessa Beetge has heard she is to be released on parole from a Brazilian prison. This is according to a report on the IOL website earlier today. Beetge is serving an eight-year sentence after being caught with 10kgs of cocaine in her luggage at a Brazilian airport in 2008.

The report goes on to say that a team from the SABC’s news programme Special Assignment last week interviewed Beetge in jail. According to specialist producer, Frank Ferro, they had spent eight days in Brazil before a judge gave them the go-ahead to speak to Beetge at the Sao Paulo prison.

“Presently, she is the longest-serving South African female prisoner at the jail. The fact that she was caught with such a large quantity of drugs has made her life difficult. Considering the really bad prison conditions, Tessa is doing well. She has put on a lot of weight. She attributes it to stress.”

Beetge is expected to serve the remaining three years of her sentence in Brazil on parole. Mr Ferro added that Beetge was concerned about being released. “She wants to serve her time in jail. She prefers it to being sent on to the streets of a foreign country with no money, friends or family.”

Meanwhile, drug dealer Sheryl Cwele, who hit the headlines when she was arrested on drug-related charges after Beetge’s arrest, has had her 20-year sentence, imposed by the Supreme Court of Appeal, reduced to the original 12-year sentence handed down by the Pietermaritzburg High Court to her and co-accused Frank Nabolisa.

Cwele, the former Hibiscus Coast head of community health and the former wife of state security minister, Siyabonga Cwele, and Nigerian national Nabolisa were sentenced in May 2011, after they were found guilty of dealing in cocaine. When they appealed, however, they received a stiffer, 20-year sentence.

Nabolisa successfully applied to the Constitutional Court to have the lighter sentence reinstated, the court upholding his argument that the State was required to appeal the sentences before they could be increased in the Appeal Court. Cwele’s application to the constitutional court was not opposed by the state and the court granted an order for her sentence to revert to the original 12 years.

To read the full IOL article, click here