The Inkatha Freedom Party was ”delighted” on Friday when the Pietermaritzburg High Court overturned a conviction and 10-year sentence for rape handed down to its national organiser Albert Mncwango.
”The political enemies of Mr Mncwango had contrived to bring these accusations against him. In order to punish him, they tried to manipulate the law, but we are happy now that all the fabrications have been exposed for what they are,” said IFP national spokesperson Musa Zondi.
He said the IFP knew that the truth would one day prevail.
However, the spokesperson for the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal, Mtholephi Mthimkhulu, said: ”As the ANC, we are making a call to the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions to look at the case afresh and come up with a watertight case.
”We believe the high court found a loophole to make it fall apart.”
Meanwhile, Mncwango himself was ”over the moon” following Friday’s ruling.
”I am very happy that I got this result. I never doubted justice would be done,” said Mncwango. According to evidence, Mncwango raped a woman at a flat in Ulundi in northern KwaZulu-Natal on September 17 2000.
On Friday, he claimed the woman — an IFP member at the time — had in 1999 handed herself over to police, facing a charge of murder.
Mncwango said she was not convicted and later joined the ANC in Ulundi. He said his arrest came just before the local government elections in 2000 and he believed the rape charge could have been ”a political set-up” because it was ”common cause” that the ANC always wanted to win support in Nongoma.
Mncwango’s sentence was handed down by magistrate Prem Mistry in the Eshowe Magistrate’s Court in August last year without the option of bail or leave to appeal.
Mncwango said he spent 19 days in jail until his lawyers successfully petitioned the judge president for leave to appeal against his sentence and conviction.
”At least now we can start picking up our lives again. We couldn’t plan anything because my future was in the balance.”
IFP chief whip Koos van der Merwe on Friday said the party will consider reporting Mistry to the Magistrate’s Commission. Van der Merwe said the IFP’s name has also been cleared because, like Mncwango’s wife, it has stood by him for the past five years.
He said an elated Mncwango will now be returning to Cape Town to take up his seat in Parliament. — Sapa