Nelson Mandela’s son-in-law turned himself in to South African police after the United States requested he be extradited to face rape charges, an Interpol official said on Tuesday.
Isaac Kwame Amuah will face an extradition hearing on February 11 after being released on R500 000 bail in connection with allegations that he raped a student while he was a lecturer in the US.
“The complainant alleges that she was raped by him,” Interpol spokesperson Tummi Golding said, stating that the charges date from 1993.
Local media reports said the charges stemmed from Amuah’s time as an assistant professor at a community college in Hartford, Connecticut.
Charges denied
Amuah, a native of Ghana, allegedly skipped bail in the US and came to South Africa to take up a job as director of the state-run Foundation for Research Development.
Golding said Amuah faces six counts of committing sexual offences and one of failing to appear in court.
Amuah denied the charges in an affidavit read out by his lawyer at his bail hearing on Monday.
The US embassy in Pretoria said last month it was working with South African officials on his extradition.
Amuah is married to Mandela’s daughter, Makaziwe, who was born in 1954 and is the former president’s fourth child with his first wife, Evelyn Mase.
Makaziwe grew up largely without her liberation hero father, who lived as a fugitive from the apartheid regime before being jailed in 1964, spending nearly 27 years in prison before his release in 1990 cemented the end of white-minority rule in South Africa. — AFP