Anxious wait for father of drug mule

The wait for convicted drug mule Tessa Beetge's return has been unbearable for her father, who is longing for information on his daughter's imminent return home from Brazil.

"I have waited five-and-half years. It has been a very, very, very long time to wait and now that she is free, waiting makes it even worse," Beetge's father Gert Swanepoel said yesterday.

Beetge, 35, was moved from Brazil's notorious Penitenciária Feminina da Capital prison more than a week ago. She was taken to a police holding cell following an expulsion order paving the way for her return.

Swanepoel, 66, said he called the South African consulate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Thursday but they had no information on when his daughter would finally board the flight home.

He said all he knew was that Brazil's federal police authorities were waiting for a judge to sign off Beetge's flight papers before she could leave.

"She also has to get a temporary passport because her passport was valid for five years [and] has expired," Swanepoel said.

Two weeks ago, Swanepoel received a four-page letter from Beetge, telling him how she could not wait to leave "this s**t hole of Brasil".

She wrote: "Many things have happened while I've been in this place but I have not changed."

Official statistics released by human rights organisations show that although Penitenciária Feminina da Capital was build to accommodate only 251 inmates, it has more than 850.

"It hasn't been easy," Beetge wrote, "but we have to live it as best we can. I'm okay, I just need you to be strong. I am sorry that you lost my mother, your wife, but it was time for her to go and be in peace."

Her mother, Marie Swanepoel, 61, with whom Beetge had a close bond, died in October.

"I don't want to write too much because it's better [for things] to be said [in person] ... and that time will be soon," she wrote in the letter dated January 2.

She reassured her father about the imminence of her release.

Beetge was arrested in Brazil in June 2008 after 10kg of cocaine was found in her luggage. She was recruited by Cheryl Cwele, then wife of Intelligence Minister Siyabonga Cwele.

Cwele and her Nigerian accomplice, Frank Nabolisa, are both serving 12-year jail terms for drugs trafficking.