Winnie Mandela escapes prison as judge suspends latest sentence

WINNIE Madikizela-Mandela yesterday performed another Houdini-like jail escape when an appeal judge upheld her prison sentence on 43 convictions of fraud, but suspended it for five years.

It was the second time the former wife of Nelson Mandela, who was once widely hailed as the "Mother of the Nation", has managed to walk away free from a long prison sentence.

Judge Eberhardt Bertelsmann, freeing Madikizela- Mandela yesterday from time in jail, told her co-accused in the fraud trial, Addy Moolman, that he would have to serve four years behind bars.

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Madikizela-Mandela, 67, arrived at the Pretoria High Court dressed in a gold and black ankle-length skirt and a gold silk turban.

Surrounded by bodyguards and journalists, she gave the clenched fist salute of the African National Congress and shouted "amandla" (power) as she entered the courtroom.

Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years imprisonment 14 months ago on 68 convictions for theft and fraud involving about one million rand (90,000). She was freed, with Moolman, on bail pending appeal. Her crime was to have applied for multiple bank loans at favourable rates in the names of fictitious members of the ANC Women’s League, of which Madikizela-Mandela was president at the time of the fraud.

Madikizela-Mandela pleaded that she had defrauded the money on behalf of poor women. But the magistrate, observing that the cheap loans had ended up in Madikizela-Mandela’s personal bank account, said: "You are no Robin Hood. The message has to be sent out that this type of behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, no matter who the transgressor."

Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in 1991 for kidnapping and assaulting a 14-year-old boy, Stompie Moeketsi, who was found dead near her Soweto home with his head caved in and his throat cut. In an unprecedented and widely mocked appeal-court judgment at the time, her jail sentence then was reduced to a 15,000 rand fine (worth 3,000 at that time).

Her alibi, which Chief Justice Michael Corbett said persuaded him to suspend her jail sentence, was subsequently proved to be a lie at a 1997 hearing of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Her two co-accused went to prison.

Mr Bertelsmann yesterday told Madikizela-Mandela that, in suspending her sentence, he had considered the fact that she was a great-grandmother. Another mitigating factor was that she had made a great deal of personal sacrifice during her lifetime.

Before her divorce from Mr Mandela, she served four short jail sentences under South Africa’s former apartheid system on charges under the Suppression of Communism Act and the notorious Terrorism Act, which permitted 90 days imprisonment without trial. She was also sent into internal exile for seven years to Brandfort, a bleak little farming town in the Orange Free State.

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Mr Bertelsmann dismissed as unrealistic and untrue her evidence that she signed scores of letters to accompany bank-loan applications out of trust in Moolman, who prepared them, and without knowing their contents. However, he acknowledged that Madikizela-Mandela had had "a long and often difficult role in public life" and that "during her lifetime, she supported a greater cause than her own".

When the judge overturned 25 theft charges against Madikizela-Mandela, she smiled. But her smile turned to a stony stare when he upheld 43 convictions of fraud. He reduced her five- year jail term to three-and-a-half years, but suspended the sentence for five years provided she is not convicted on any further criminal charges.

Madikizela-Mandela was defiant and unrepentant. "I have instructed my lawyers to appeal against a judgment that is completely wrong," she said outside the court.