Drug mule Tessa Beetge celebrates her 36th birthday in a Brazilian jail as her family continues to hold out hope for her early release.
|||Durban - Drug mule Tessa Beetge celebrates her 36th birthday in a Brazilian jail today as her South African family continues to hold out hope for her early release.
“All I want to ask Tessie is when is she coming home,” said her mother, Marie Swanepoel, who will try to contact her today to wish her a happy birthday.
Swanepoel has written to Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, asking for her daughter to be pardoned, but apart from receiving a letter of acknowledgement in November, saying her request would be submitted to the department in charge of the matter, she has not heard anything from the Brazilian government.
In March, she contacted the Brazilian Embassy in South Africa, asking for a five-minute meeting with Rousseff when she was in Durban for the Brics summit. “I received no joy. They didn’t even acknowledge my request,” Swanepoel said yesterday.
Beetge was arrested in Brazil in 2008 after 10kg of cocaine was found in her luggage at the São Paulo airport. She is serving an eight-year jail term.
Convicted drug dealer Sheryl Cwele and her accomplice Frank Nabolisa recruited Beetge and another woman, Charmaine Moss, and offered them work overseas. Only Beetge accepted.
Cwele, the former director of health at the Hibiscus Coast Municipality and the ex-wife of State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, was convicted with Nabolisa of dealing in cocaine in May 2011.
Both were sentenced to 12 years in jail, but they appealed against their convictions and sentences in the Supreme Court of Appeal which, in October last year confirmed the convictions and increased their jail terms from 12 years to 20.
Cwele and Nabolisa are serving their sentences. Nabolisa is also awaiting the outcome of his application for leave to appeal in the Constitutional Court. His application was heard in March and judgment was reserved.
Swanepoel, who has been championing for her daughter’s early release, moved house in March from Margate on the South Coast to Steinberg in the Eastern Cape where her parents and sister live.
Her two grandchildren and husband, Gert, are still living on the South Coast.
Beetge is allowed only two 15-minute conversations a year – on her birthday and on Christmas Day. She is also allowed to receive care packages and correspond with her family and friends via e-mail.
“I usually send her something for her birthday, but this time I wasn’t able to because of my big move,” said Swanepoel.
“My e-mail also still needs to be sorted out, so I know Tessie must be feeling a bit despondent not hearing from me as much as usual.”
Swanepoel said she would try to contact her daughter from 3pm today because it would be 10am in Brazil, the time the prison opens.
“Sometimes I get through on the same day and sometimes they keep telling me to call back,” she said. “I hope I get to speak to her on her birthday.”
noelene.barbeau@inl.co.za
Daily News