Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: I have just given you a reason why you had to control that, because your husband asked you to disband the Club, because of these allegations of thuggery around the Club and because from the thuggery it led to your house being attacked and burnt in 1988, in July.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: No evidence has been brought here concretely stating that boy so and so who was staying at your house, raped such and such a girl on such and such a date, those were the perceptions we are dealing with and those were the perceptions we are still dealing with right now.

UNKNOWN: Are you still maintaining Mrs Madikizela-Mandela that no evidence has been brought forward after all these days of hearings, that the boys who were associated with the Mandela United Football Club, the boys who were staying at the back of your premises, have not been engaging in criminal activities of whatever kind?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: As you have correctly pointed out, who were associated.  There isn't a single case here where a boy who was directly staying in my house, was involved in rapes and was involved in these type of evidence which was led here.  If that had been the case, I would have acted.

UNKNOWN: Let's start.  Was Jerry Richardson, as the coach of the Football Club, staying on your premises after his house was attacked?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: He is serving a life sentence for assault, murder, kidnapping and attempted murder?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: Was Oupa Alex Seheri ever staying at your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: No, how could Oupa Seheri stay in my house?  He was a trained cadre from Lusaka.  He did not stay in my house.

UNKNOWN: I see.  Did he visit your house regularly?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: He did visit the house and he was not seeing me directly, he was communicating with whoever he was using at the time.  It did happen that cadres used some of the boys who were in the premises as their couriers.

UNKNOWN: Was he coming to your premises?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: He was coming to the back rooms.

UNKNOWN: If he was coming to the back rooms and your house was a police station, as you put it, wasn't he being totally irresponsible?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Well, their safety and security was entirely their matter.  I did not have a mandate to look after their safety.  If he was that careless to continue coming to that house, that was not my responsibility.

UNKNOWN: But you advised us that you were engaged both in overt and covert activities for the ANC, that you were acting for the ANC and acting with MK?  You in fact went so far as to say that you reported to Chris Hani, this is at the Section 29 inquiry?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: Wasn't this irresponsible of you to allow a trained MK cadre to come in and out of your house, back rooms or wherever, wouldn't that have put you into danger?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Okay, can I repeat again.  I did not hold myself responsible for the activities of the cadres, once I have done whatever job I was required to do of them.
 And the fact that they were communicating with the boys at the back, was none of my concern.

UNKNOWN: I see.  You know of course that Oupa Seheri is in prison for murder?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I beg your pardon?

UNKNOWN: That he is in prison for murder?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, he is.

UNKNOWN: You also know that the murder which he is supposed to have committed, that he came back to your house to collect a firearm?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I subsequently heard of that evidence here in fact.  I didn't know these details until I think you mentioned it, something like that in the in camera hearing.

UNKNOWN: Weren't you at the trial?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I beg your pardon?

UNKNOWN: Were you not at the trial?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: No, I did not attend the trial.

UNKNOWN: Are you aware that John Morgan who you say was a neighbour who helped you and who said he was your driver, which evidence was also given at his trial, was found guilty of being an accessory to kidnapping?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Morgan appeared with me in that matter, the kidnapping matter.

UNKNOWN: So you are aware of that?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Are you aware of Charles Bobo Zwane?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, I knew him as Bobo.

UNKNOWN: You confirmed the last time that he stayed on occasion at your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: He did come in and out of my house.  In fact he is very near, his home is very near my place.

UNKNOWN: And he is serving a term of imprisonment for nine murders?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, he is.  He cried, he broke down and cried here and he said he knew nothing about the other murders.  He knew something about the three murders.

UNKNOWN: He also talked about a shebeen incident where a hand grenade was used because he got into a fight.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, Mr Chairman, that was during the days of the underground struggle.  There is nothing peculiar about that.

UNKNOWN: It is very peculiar when an MK weapon smuggled into a country like a hand grenade is thrown into a shebeen because of a bar brawl.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: You are not suggesting that had anything to do with me?

UNKNOWN: I am telling you that the man used to stay at your house, which you have confirmed.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: He did not stay in my house, he was in and out of my house and of course, he had stated here that he was not even a member of the Club.  He did not play soccer.

UNKNOWN: We have agreed on the outset, when we started off, that we are not talking simply about soccer rites, we were talking about a group of young men who hung around the back of your house, and who accompanied you on various occasions.  That is what we are talking about?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: You are not suggesting for God's sake, that I would be responsible for the actions of those youths when they left my premises, went back to their homes, that I would be held responsible for that?

UNKNOWN: Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, you heard Mr Zwane himself say that he was sitting in Zinzi's bedroom, which I accept is the back room of your Orlando house, with a Scorpion machine pistol in his bag and Oupa Seheri arrived and gave him a crash course in using an AK47 and how they exchanged guns and when Oupa Seheri came back to fetch him, you heard all that?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I heard all that.

UNKNOWN: And he left with Oupa Seheri with two hand grenades, you heard that?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: The fact that they were that careless to do that, cannot possibly be attributed to me.

UNKNOWN: But you were an MK operative and you allowed such irresponsible activity to take place in your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: How did I allow that Mr Chairman?

UNKNOWN: That you did not take steps because people had been complaining to you from Mr Nelson Mandela himself to the Mandela Crisis Committee to a wake up call where you house is burnt, and you still let these youths live at the back of your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Where was the Crisis Committee complaining about a hand grenade held by Charles, long before the house was burnt down, what sort of logic is that?

UNKNOWN: Let's not confuse issues.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: No, you are saying that the Crisis Committee was in existence before it actually existed.  All those events occurred before the house was burnt down, so there was no Crisis Committee.  You are confused.

UNKNOWN: I am giving you ...

CHAIRPERSON: Order please.  May I just warn you again that is conduct I will not tolerate.  Let me just let you be aware of that that you have a perfect right to applaud if I give you the permission.  But you are also perfectly free to do what you want to do outside of here, okay.  Thank you very much.