Winnie Mandela’s Guard Convicted of Killing Teen

A judge today convicted Winnie Mandela’s former bodyguard of killing a black teen-age activist and said Mandela was at home when the kidnaped boy was brought there and beaten.

Supreme Court Justice Brian O’Donovan convicted Jerry Richardson of murdering 14-year-old James Stompie Seipei Moeketski on Jan. 1, 1989.

He also was convicted of kidnaping, attempted murder and assault in cases involving three other men who were abducted and beaten at her home in Soweto township, according to testimony.

Winnie Mandela, wife of black nationalist leader Nelson R. Mandela and a prominent anti-apartheid activist herself, was not charged in the case, even though witnesses testified that she participated in the beatings. She has said she was not at her house when any assaults took place.

Richardson once was Winnie Mandela’s chief bodyguard and the coach of the Mandela United soccer team, whose members also served as guards.

His sentencing was postponed until Aug. 6 while he undergoes psychiatric examinations. If no extenuating circumstances are found, the death penalty is mandatory.

However, President Frederik W. de Klerk suspended executions in February as part of his efforts to encourage negotiations between the white minority government and black organizations such as the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela is deputy president of the ANC.

Three men testified during the 23-day trial that Richardson and other bodyguards kidnaped them and Stompie from a Methodist Church house in Soweto on Dec. 29, 1988.

They said that they were taken to Winnie Mandela’s home and that she beat them and Stompie with her fists and a whip, then allowed her bodyguards to continue assaulting them.

Eight other former bodyguards face trial on lesser charges. Winnie Mandela did not testify at Richardson’s trial, although his attorney asked her to do so.

Nelson Mandela said Wednesday that the government was trying to ruin his wife’s reputation by deliberately not charging her in a “case which centers on her.” However, he said he was not calling on the government to prosecute his wife.

Winnie Mandela has made no public statement on the case since last year when leaders of major anti-apartheid organizations accused her of complicity in the abductions and assaults and called on the Soweto community to ostracize her.

A few months later she reappeared on the stage at anti-apartheid rallies, however, and she has accompanied her husband at most public engagements since he was freed Feb. 11 after serving 27 years in prison.