Witness Against Mrs. Mandela Kidnaped

The kidnaping and assault trial of Winnie Mandela was abruptly postponed Monday when prosecutors said one of their key witnesses had been abducted the previous night from a church home where he was being hidden.

The missing witness, Gabriel Mekgwe, 22, had testified in a related trial last year that he and three other black men were held at the Mandela home in 1988 and beaten with whips and fists by Winnie Mandela and her followers.

One of those victims, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, was later found dead. Mekgwe and the other two survivors are eyewitnesses in the state’s case against Mandela.

The prosecutor, Jan Swanepoel, was preparing to call his first witness Monday when he learned of Mekgwe’s disappearance. He asked Justice M. S. Stegmann for a delay in the trial, arguing that the kidnaping “will obviously intimidate other witnesses.”

The defense did not oppose Swanepoel’s request, and the judge adjourned the district court trial until this morning.

Minutes before Swanepoel’s dramatic announcement, Mandela and her three co-defendants pleaded not guilty to the four counts of kidnaping and four counts of assault against them.

Mandela’s husband, Nelson Mandela, deputy president of the African National Congress, escorted her to the courthouse but did not stay for the proceedings.

In a statement read in court by her attorney, Mrs. Mandela provided her most detailed response yet to the charges. She said she had been out of town at the time, having gone to Brandfort, about 220 miles away, on Dec. 29, 1988, the day of the alleged abductions and beatings.

When she returned two days later, Mrs. Mandela said, co-defendant Xoliswa Falati informed her that she and Jerry Richardson had taken four men from a Methodist Church halfway house in Soweto to her home to protect them from alleged sexual abuse by the white pastor, the Rev. Paul Verryn.

Mrs. Mandela said she “did not in any way deprive the (men) of their liberty of movement.” She added that she “did not take part in any assault on any person, nor was any assault committed in my presence.”

Richardson, former leader of Mrs. Mandela’s controversial band of young bodyguards, was convicted and sentenced to death last year in the murder of Seipei.

Mrs. Mandela did not testify in that trial, but the judge made a special finding that she had been present when some of the beatings took place. And the judge said also that there was no evidence to indicate that Verryn had sexually abused the men.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Swanepoel sought to counter ANC charges that the current trial is an attempt to persecute Winnie Mandela and the ANC.

“No matter who the accused are, this is not a political trial as far as the state is concerned,” Swanepoel said. “The accused are charged with common crimes . . . .”

He said the state’s case would include testimony from the three survivors as well as medical evidence concerning their injuries.

The prosecutor provided few details of his witness’ abduction, telling reporters only that Mekgwe “was seen being taken away” Sunday night from the church house in the Johannesburg area. Mekgwe and the other two witnesses had refused to accept state protection but were being looked after at separate sites by the church and the Legal Resources Center, the prosecutor said.

“I am, of course, worried,” Swanepoel told reporters. “Why would one suddenly last night kidnap the man? The answer is obvious.”