Winnie Mandela gets a fresh chance as heavy-handed police actions give her the advantage, writes Gaye
BLUNDERS on the part of police and justice department officials in the raid on deputy minister Winnie Mandela’s Soweto home have tossed her a political lifeline and forced the ANC and the government to back off from taking swift action against her.
Mandela’s attorney Templeton Mageza told the Weekly Mail & Guardian yesterday the affidavit on which Magistrate I Olivier based his decision to grant police a warrant to search her home was ”illegal” and amounted to ”a fishing expedition”. It stated that in order to prove a prima facie case against Mandela, searches were necessary to seize documents, Mageza said
Mageza claimed this was illegal. ”They were saying to him they had no evidence of any crime having been committed but wanted to create a case by going to search. A magistrate must first be satisfied there is evidence of an offence having been committed before granting a warrant.”
Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi, cited as first respondent in the supreme court action Mandela launched to have search warrants declared invalid, had meanwhile not filed opposing affidavits by Tuesday’s deadline. ”The police are not opposing the case,” Mageza said.
A copy of the disputed affidavit was to have been delivered to Mageza by Tuesday’s deadline. It was delivered a day late and unsigned, Mageza said. ”This morning we were given another copy of the affidavit, this time bearing a signature,” he said yesterday. He said the Commissioner of Oaths who attested the affidavit was in fact a police major who had himself been involved in the raid.
Mageza said Mandela had considered launching a Constitutional Court action on the basis that her rights had been violated by an invasion of her privacy. Mageza said: ”We no longer consider this will be
Senior ANC members were this week decrying the highly publicised ”Rambo-style” police raid and reports that search warrants were defective as ”an absolute
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki will be meeting Mandela in Pretoria this afternoon. His spokesman, Thami Ntenteni, said yesterday: ”The deputy president will listen to Mrs Mandela and hear her views on the matter,” he said. While the discussion was expected to be ”broad- ranging”, it would focus on her controversial trip to West Africa, apparently in defiance of President Mandela’s express orders not to do so.
”Mrs Mandela will raise issues herself — she has a point of view. No decision can be taken before the meeting. For example the police raided her house with all the drama that that entailed and now we read in the newspapers that they don’t have a case,” Ntenteni said. ”The deputy president will aproach the matter with all due objectivity.” He would then report back to President Mandela.
Mandela’s private secretary Alan Reynolds said this week the row about the trip was ”artificial” and tied in with an ”orchestrated campaign” to discredit her, which had now backfired.
The raid and the wealth of detail given by police to the media detailing documents seized — including details of Mandela’s grocery bills — had won her support from ”ordinary South Africans who feel this was a violation of her rights,” Reynolds said.
He said Mandela was advised by the ministry of foreign affairs to go to West Africa on November 11 after applying to do so on October 30 last year.