SOUTH AFRICA: The former wife of Nelson Mandela and the president of the African National Congress's Women's League, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, was yesterday found guilty on multiple charges of fraud and theft, writes Patrick Laurence in Johannesburg.
Now for the second time in her life faced the prospect of serious punishment for a criminal offence.
Madikizela-Mandela, who was once an undisputed icon of the struggle against apartheid and widely revered as the "mother of the nation", was stoically passive when regional court magistrate Judge Peet Johnson convicted her on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft.
She had earlier labelled the charges against her "a pack of lies" and railed against the "sick law" that had led to her being charged for "obtaining loans for people". After hearing that she had been convicted Madikizela-Mandela, now in her mid-sixties, was seen in earnest conservation with her lawyer, Mr Isaac Semenya, almost certainly about plans to appeal the conviction.
The last time Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of a criminal offence was in 1991, when she was found guilty of kidnapping and assault and sentenced to imprisonment for six years. The Appeal Court upheld her kidnapping conviction but sentenced her to a heavy fine instead of imprisonment. Magistrate Johnson, who is scheduled to sentence Madikizela-Mandela today, described the evidence against Madikizela-Mandela and her co-accused, Andy Moolman, as "overwhelming".
The fraud charges related to loans obtained for purported employees of the ANC Women's League from the Saambou Bank, in terms of an agreement between the league and the bank. It transpired the applicants were not league employees. The loans applications, written on ANC Women's League letterheads and signed by Madikizela-Mandela, described them as employees.