Mandelas’ Home Raided; Gun Is Found

Police today raided anti-apartheid activist Winnie Mandela’s Soweto home, found a gun and detained her daughter for about five hours, township sources said.

Family friends said Mandela’s daughter, Zindzi, 26, was freed by police almost five hours after she was held in the second police raid on the Mandela home in a month.

Mandela, wife of jailed African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, told friends that police found a gun in the house.

Zindzi Mandela would not comment, but family lawyer Ismail Ayob said she had not been charged.

Shots were fired during the raid, a source in the black township said, but there were no reports of anyone being hurt.

Sources reached by telephone said police went to Mandela’s small home about 8 a.m. They searched the house and detained eight men and Mandela’s daughter, the sources said. It was not immediately known if the men had been released.

Visibly distressed as she left to follow police to the nearby Protea Police Station, Winnie Mandela told friends that officers found a Soviet-made Makharov pistol on top of a wardrobe in Zindzi’s room.