TUESDAY, 9.00AM
POLICE commissioner George Fivaz said on Monday that the Witwatersrand attorney-general has indicated he will institute criminal proceedings against Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and her “football team” for the murder of Lolo Sono if the young man’s body can be found.
Sono was a member of the Mandela United Football Team, a gang of township thugs who protected Madikizela-Mandela during the 1980s. He disappeared without trace after allegedly being beaten by other team members.
President Nelson Mandela, meanwhile, said on Monday the ANC Women’s League has the right to nominate his ex-wife Winnie for deputy president of the party despite the murder allegations against her.
MONDAY, 12.00NOON
WINNIE Madikizela-Mandela was at the weekend implicated in another murder. Former Mandela United football club coach Jerry Richardson, serving a life sentence for the murder of teen activist Stompie Seipei, has implicated Madikizela-Mandela, his former employer, in the murder of another teen activist, Kuki Zwane.
In a SABC TV interview on Sunday, Richardson said he had killed the young girl on Madikizela-Mandela’s orders. “The fact that Kuki Zwane was killed is because Mrs Mandela handed me down a task and said: ‘Richardson, Kuki Zwane is disturbing me, she’s bothering me …’,” he said. He added that Madikizela-Mandela believed Zwane was a police spy, “so I took Kuki and I went to kill her”, he said, adding: “Her body was not found and I was not arrested for that case.” Richardson said he has applied for amnesty for Zwane’s murder.
Richardson also implicated Madikizela-Mandela in the murder of Seipei, but contradicted recent claims that she had delivered the killing blow. Richardson said he and another football club member known as “Slash” had killed Seipei on Madikizela-Mandela’s orders and while she watched. “No other person killed him except me and Slash with instructions from Mrs Mandela,” he said.
Richardson’s version contradicts that of her co-accused, fugitive Katiza Cebekhulu, who claimed he saw Madikizela-Mandela stabbing Seipei to death.
Meanwhile, the national executive committee of the African National Congress Women’s League at the weekend confirmed its support for Madikizela-Mandela as the league’s president by nominating her for the ANC’s deputy presidency.