WORLD IN BRIEF : SOUTH AFRICA : Winnie Mandela Beat 4, Witness Says

A witness testified in a Johannesburg court that Winnie Mandela, wife of prominent black nationalist Nelson Mandela, beat three men and a teen-ager who were allegedly abducted and held captive in her home in January, 1989. The teen-ager was later found stabbed to death, and one of Winnie Mandela’s former bodyguards is on trial for murder and kidnaping. According to the testimony of Kenneth Ngase, 30, one of the four, the beatings occurred after Mandela was told the four engaged in homosexual acts with a minister who ran the home where they lived. Mandela has not been charged and denies she was present during the beatings.