- (PRETORIA) -- Winnie Madikizela was sentenced
to five years in jail on Friday after her conviction on dozens of fraud
and theft charges.
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- She will serve eight months of her sentence in prison,
after which she would be required to do community service, Magistrate Peet
Johnson said in the Pretoria Regional Court. One year of the sentence is
suspended for five years.
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- Madikizela-Mandela (68) was caught in a web of forged
signatures, bogus employees and a non-existent funeral scheme. After her
evidence was branded dishonest and her denials implausible, she was convicted
on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft.
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- In a statement issued afterwards, Madikizela-Mandela
said she would resign as MP, as African National Congress Women's League
president, as member of the ANC's national executive committee, and from
attendant positions in the party.
-
- "This I will do in the fullness of time," she
said.
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- Her co-accused, broker Addy Moolman, was sentenced to
seven years in prison, of which two years were suspended for five years.
-
- The court granted applications by Madikizela-Mandela
and Moolman for leave to appeal against their conviction and sentence.
Their bail was increased from R5 000 to R10 000 each.
-
- Earlier the State had asked for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
to be given a medium-term prison sentence for fraud and theft, but said
the effect of imprisonment should be tempered.
-
- The question should be asked whether society expected
an elderly great-grandmother to be imprisoned, prosecutor Jan Ferreira
told the Pretoria Regional Court.
-
- The prosecution accepted her contribution to bring about
a new political dispensation in South Africa.
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- "One should consider the hardship she had suffered
and is still suffering. She has been banished, tortured and her husband
was in prison," Ferreira said.
-
- "Unfortunately something went wrong somewhere. She
started to act as if she was above the law. She showed no respect for institutions
of the state, including parliament."
-
- Several streets around the Pretoria Regional Court were
partially cordoned off following threats by the Congress of South African
Students (Cosas) to do "anything" in its power to keep its honorary
president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela out of jail even if it meant burning
the prison holding her.
-
- On Thursday, Cosas called on pupils and students to go
to Pretoria on Friday to show support for Madikizela-Mandela. Police said
they were aware of the Cosas threat and had sufficient plans in place to
deal with any incident.
-
- The Pretoria regional court yesterday found South Africa's
anti-apartheid campaigner guilty of exploiting her position as head of
the African National Congress's women's league to defraud a bank and dozens
of ordinary people.
-
- Supporters cried "Viva Winnie" in the dank
corridor outside No 1 court, and she raised a clenched fist, but that could
not mask what was a devastating blow to the self-styled mother of the nation.
-
- Opposition parties said it should end a political career
that started four decades ago as a fairytale of the liberation struggle.
-
- Johnson said the evidence against her was "overwhelming"
and it was "completely improbable" that Madikizela-Mandela, who
pleaded not guilty, did not know of the scam.
-
- The fraud charges relate to loans from Saambou Bank and
a brokerage firm, Imstud, for applicants who falsely claimed to be employees
of the ANC women's league. They presented the bank with letters with league
letterheads and Madikizela-Mandela's signature.
-
- "She exactly knew that she signed letters that would
enable people to get loans to which they were not entitled," the magistrate
said.
-
- The theft charges related to deductions the league president
is said to have made from each of the loan applicants' bank accounts for
a funeral policy which was not underwritten. Instead the money was used
to pay one of Madikizela-Mandela's employees.
-
- In testimony, Madikizela-Mandela said the intention was
philanthropic and that she had signed documents without checking them,
not realising Moolman was a crook.
-
- Wearing a cream jacket and skirt and a pearl necklace,
she remained impassive when the verdict was announced to a packed courtroom.
Ignoring questions from reporters, she was escorted by bodyguards past
supporters -- and a court cafe called Caught -- to a waiting Mercedes-Benz.
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- The populist is loathed by President Thabo Mbeki, who
famously knocked off her hat when she tried to kiss him at a rally, but
retains strong support among grassroot activists.
-
- Despite international shopping sprees and a taste for
luxury, the former social worker engages with the poor and young, turning
up at their funerals and weddings.
-
- The Madikizela-Mandela is seen as a hot potato and several
ANC members are relying on the court to deal with her decisively. Having
received the sixth most votes in the election for the ANC's 60-member executive
committee, she seldom showed up at parliament.
-
- A core of loyalists forgave her everything, including
the adultery cited by Nelson Mandela in their 1995 divorce, and the 1991
conviction over the death of Stompie Seipei, a 14-year-old activist found
near her Soweto home with his throat cut.
-
- For that a six-year jail term was reduced on appeal to
a fine, but for many the mother of the nation had become the "mugger
of the nation".
-
- Madikizela-Mandela has recently been embroiled in two
legal battles and was recently found guilty of breaching Parliamentís
code of conduct by failing to disclose her financial interests. Early this
month she sought to challenge the public censure she faced as a result.
-
- Senior members of the ANCís NEC have been talking
to Madikizela-Mandela over the past two years to ìprevent her from
self-destructingî, said an NEC member. ANC deputy president Jacob
Zuma and former NEC member Peter Mokaba, who was a close friend of hers,
were among those who had tried to talk to her.
-
- There is a sense in some ANC leadership circles, however,
that these interventions came too late because her ìself-destructiveî
tendencies had developed too far.
-
- ìWe should have provided her with more guidance
on how to conduct herself and her affairs. To an extent the ANC leadership
has failed,î said one ANC leader, who added that Madikizela-Mandela
was nonetheless the cause of her own demise.
-
- Another NEC member said: ìShe is beyond being
influenced and plays one member against the other ó her usual style
of brinkmanship.î
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- The ANC leadershipís ability to deal with her
was constrained by her grassroots popularity, which has allowed her to
flout organisational discipline and publicly differ from the official line.
-
- Madikizela-Mandela never fails to draw the crowds, and
her court appearances have been no exception, with people thronging outside
court to cheer her.
-
- Madikizela-Mandela father chose the name "Winifred"
because it sounded German, a people he respected for their diligence. Nomzamo,
the first name by which few know her, means "she who must endure trials".
-
- - Staff reporters, Sapa, Guardian Unlimited © Guardian
Newspapers Limited 2003
- http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=13558&t=1
-
- Comment
-
- From Jan Lamprecht
- AfricanCrisis.Org
- 4-25-3
-
- Although convicted of the crime, they manage to give
her a soft landing by whittling it down to a mere 8 months in jail. Nevertheless,
it still shows she is basically a crook - as are most of them in our Government
- except, she got caught with a ton of evidence which could not be ignored.
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