Five South Africans have appeared in court on charges relating to recruitment and fighting for Russia in its war with Ukraine, amid allegations that 17 South Africans had been tricked on to the frontlines of the conflict.

A female suspect was arrested on Thursday on her return to South Africa at OR Tambo international airport outside Johannesburg, police said. Three suspects were arrested at the airport on Friday and another on Saturday.

A police statement said: “The arrests emanate from a tipoff from OR Tambo SAPS [South African police service] regarding three males en route to Russia via the United Arab Emirates who were removed from the boarding gate as suspicious and referred to the Hawks’ [the directorate for priority crime investigation] crimes against the state section.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that a South African female had been facilitating the travel and recruitment of these individuals into the Russian Federation military.”

The five suspects who appeared at a brief hearing and were remanded in custody were Nonkululeko Mantula, 39, a national radio presenter; Thulani Mazibuko, 24; Xolani Ntuli, 47; Siphamandla Tshabalala, 23; and Sfiso Mabena, 21. Proceedings were postponed until a bail hearing on 8 December.

The arrests come after competing police affidavits filed by two daughters of the former South African president Jacob Zuma. It is illegal for South Africans to fight for or help foreign militaries without government authorisation.

On 6 November, the office of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said it was investigating how the men became trapped in eastern Ukraine and was working to bring them home.

On 22 November, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube filed a police report alleging that her sister Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and two others, Siphokazi Xuma and Blessing Khoza, had recruited 17 men, including eight Zuma relatives, by telling them they would be training as bodyguards for the Zumas’ uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.

Zuma-Sambudla claimed she was deceived by Khoza into recruiting for what she thought was a legitimate course, after she attended the training for a month in Russia. The 43-year-old resigned as an MK MP last week.

Russia’s embassy in South Africa did not reply immediately to a request for comment.

South Africans’ attention was also piqued by the allegations against Mantula, who hosted the Morning Bliss, a 3-5am show on SAfm, a radio station owned by the national South African Broadcasting Corporation. Posts on her Instagram account on 9 November showed her speaking at events in Moscow.

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According to her social media, Mantula was co-chair of the Brics Journalists Association. Brics is a non-western bloc of countries that includes Russia and South Africa.

The Brics Journalists Association was put under sanctions in July by the EU, which said it was a Russian NGO founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the Russian mercenary Wagner group until he was killed in a plane crash in 2023.

The EU’s sanctions tracker said: “The BJA has been used as a vehicle to disseminate pro-Russian narratives and disinformation under the guise of independent journalism, including fake content originating from the Storm-1516 information manipulation set).”