Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said on Friday she did not understand why she was charged with fraud for loans she was supposed to have secured for other people, none of whom said they shared the money with her.
”That is a sick law if I am charged here for obtaining loans for people and I did not benefit from them,” she told the Pretoria Regional Court. ”What would I hope to gain?”
The African National Congress Women’s League president concluded her testimony on Friday, and the trial was postponed until April 22. She and broker Addy Moolman have pleaded not guilty to 60 charges of fraud and 25 of theft involving R942 360.
The State alleges that letters on the ANCWL letterhead, bearing Madikizela-Mandela’s signature, were used to fraudulently obtain loans from Saambou Bank in the name of bogus league employees.
These included her daughter Zinzi, sister-in-law Ivy Madikizela and personal banker Dixie Seakamela. The letters falsely stated that the applicants were employed by
the league.
The theft charges relate to amounts of R360 deducted from loan applicants’ bank accounts for a funeral policy that allegedly did not exist.
Jan Ferreira, for the State, asked Madikizela-Mandela whether she, had she been the prosecuting authority, would have prosecuted on the basis of the available information.
She replied: ”I would agree with you categorically if what was placed before you was false information.”
Ferreira stated to her that her evidence was false in as far as it differed from that given by the State witnesses. ”I don’t know what you mean,” Madikizela-Mandela replied. ”I’ve given truthful evidence in this court.”
According to Ferreira, the State witnesses were truthful in their testimony regarding her involvement in the loan scheme. But Madikizela-Mandela retorted: ”I listened to a pack of lies here in this court.”
Why then, Ferreira wanted to know, would people from so many different walks of life and backgrounds, ”disciples of yours”, lie. She replied: ”In the same vein I could ask why people who benefited from the loans I am supposed to have obtained for them did not say I in fact got half of them.
”Yet I sit here to answer fraud charges while other people benefited. To me, that sounds like insane logic.”
Madikizela-Mandela asked: ”Why would I commit so much fraud, (submit) false applications for so-called bogus employees … and I did not benefit one of them?”
Ferreira pointed out to her that she herself did not necessarily have to benefit financially to be accused of fraud. It would also constitute fraud if someone else received the money through her actions.
This was a sick law, she said. While other people benefited from the loans, she was the one facing fraud charges, Madikizela-Mandela said. Ferreira asked why so many people would conspire against her and lie to the court.
”I do not know why they would,” she said. ”They used the loans for their own purposes. I sit here while they received the loans.”
This concluded her cross-examination, and her counsel, Ishmael Semenya, told Magistrate Peet Johnson he did want to re-examine her.
Johnson told Madikizela-Mandela she could step down from the witness box.
”Thanks, your worship. Thank you very much,” she replied.
Semenya said he might be necessary to get some evidence regarding a letter typed on the computer of Eunice Martins, his client’s secretary. The magistrate ruled that the case should continue from April 22 to 25, when counsel’s closing arguments and judgment would be delivered as well. – Sapa