Beetge leaves aunt holding roses of rejection

An aunt of drug mule Tessa Beetge travelled from Eastern Cape to meet her niece, who spent six years in a Brazilian jail, but was instead used as a "decoy" for media attention.

Holding a bunch of yellow roses, Margie Olsen waited at OR Tambo International Airport for the moment she could welcome Beetge home and hug her.

Yellow roses, said Olsen, were the favourite flowers of Beetge's mother, Marie Swanepoel.

Swanepoel "lived to fight" for her daughter's freedom and it had been her dream to welcome back her child, but she died suddenly in October last year. Olsen said it was for her sister that she had come to Johannesburg for the first time in "years".

She waited, surrounded by media, while keeping her eye on the arrivals door, checking every passenger to see if it was "Tessie".

But as the passengers and crew from the Sao Paulo flight arrived, Beetge was not among them.

Then Olsen noticed Beetge's best friend, a South African who spent two and half years in jail with her, had disappeared.

"Where is she? She must be here," she said.

Unbeknown to Olsen, Beetge and her friend had been whisked away from the airport without coming through the international arrivals hall.

Later in the day Olsen sobbed and said: "I was used as a decoy."

Beetge is apparently staying with her friend in Pretoria.

Yesterday afternoon the friend said: "She is tired. She is feeling overwhelmed. She doesn't want to talk to the media."

But Beetge was interviewed yesterday by a television journalist who had visited her in prison in Brazil.

She told the journalist that she had a new love interest and had made peace with the involvement of Cheryl Cwele, former wife of Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, in the crime.

Olsen will remain in Johannesburg for a few more days but is unsure when she will hear from Beetge.

Cwele, who is serving a 12-year term, did not want to comment on Beetge's release. Department of Correctional Services spokesman Manelisi Wolela confirmed that she had declined a request to be interviewed on the matter.