Mrs. Mandela Whipped Him, Witness Testifies : South Africa: Alleged kidnaping victim takes stand rather than go to jail. He describes beating of slain boy.

Winnie Mandela punched and whipped four young men in her home, telling them they were “not fit to be alive,” and later hummed a tune and danced as some of her followers continued the beatings, one of the alleged victims testified Wednesday.

In a dramatic 3 1/2 hours on the stand, Kenneth Kgase described how several associates of Mrs. Mandela kidnaped him and three other black men from a Methodist church halfway house in Soweto in 1988.

They were taken to the Mandela home, where Winnie accused him and two others of having had homosexual relations with the pastor who runs the halfway house, Kgase said. She accused the fourth, 15-year-old Stompie Seipei, of being a police informer.

“All of a sudden, I was grabbed by my hair,” Kgase testified under questioning by prosecutor Jan Swanepoel. “Mrs. Mandela grabbed me. She asked me why did I do that. Then she punched me . . . .”

Swanepoel asked: “You mean she punched you with a fist?”

“Yes,” Kgase responded. “And she punched me again. And let go of me and grabbed Stompie by his shoulder . . . and he was punched twice.”

Kgase’s willingness to testify after first refusing surprised defense attorneys, who had privately predicted that the state would be forced to drop the kidnaping and assault charges against Mandela.

Both Kgase and another witness, Thabiso Mono, had refused to testify, telling the judge last month that they were afraid because a third state witness, Gabriel Mekgwe, had mysteriously disappeared shortly after the trial began.

But the judge, Michael S. Stegmann, ordered the two men to testify and sentenced them to five years in jail, renewable indefinitely until they changed their minds. The men were temporarily spared from serving that sentence by prosecutor Swanepoel, who obtained a postponement to allow police time to find Mekgwe.

When the trial was resumed Wednesday, Swanepoel said the police had been unable to find Mekgwe. But he added that the threat of jail had persuaded Kgase and Mono to change their minds and testify.

The 31-year-old Kgase, considered the key to the state’s case, appeared nervous Wednesday as he described the beatings. He stole occasional glances at Mandela, who was sitting with three co-defendants.

Mandela’s husband, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, left the court gallery shortly after Kgase’s testimony began and did not hear the witness’s allegations about his wife.

Kgase, a short, stocky man with a flat-top haircut, was to take the stand again today. He is expected to be on the stand for several days.

The charges against Winnie Mandela, who contends that she was out of town during the kidnaping and beatings, have divided the ANC.

Her supporters say the trial is a political ploy to discredit the ANC and Mrs. Mandela, who holds several important positions in the organization. But many others in the ANC point out that she is charged with common crimes that have nothing to do with her political activities.

The case, and especially the disappearance of the witness, has embarrassed the ANC, and officers of the organization have described it as a public relations disaster.

In his testimony, Kgase said the beatings occurred in a back room of Mrs. Mandela’s Soweto home. He said she punched Seipei “for a considerable amount of time,” during which Seipei denied being a police informant. Kgase said Seipei appeared to be “feeling pain.”

Kgase said Mrs. Mandela went from one man to another, punching each of them, and then the others in the room joined in.

“There was pandemonium,” Kgase said. “I got myself punched by too many people. I was severely punched for a long time. I can’t remember how it stopped.”

During the beatings, Kgase said, “Mrs. Mandela was humming a tune . . . and dancing to the rhythm.

“All of a sudden,” Kgase added, “I saw her having a sjambok (whip), and she started with me again . . . . Before she said anything, she struck several blows.”

He said he fell to the ground and tried to shield himself as others in the room “were sitting and watching.” When she stopped hitting him, Kgase said, she returned to Seipei.

Then, Kgase said, three of the men in the room picked up Seipei and dropped him twice on his head. Others in the room beat Seipei severely with sjamboks until his face was bloody and his head swollen, Kgase said. As the beatings continued, Mrs. Mandela left the room, he testified.

Seipei’s body was found a week later in a Soweto field.

Dr. Patricia Klepp, who performed the autopsy on Seipei, testified that he had been stabbed three times in the neck and beaten severely on the head and body. She said either the stab wounds or the head injuries could have caused his death.

Under questioning, Kgase said he knew of no homosexual incidents at the church house, which is run by the Rev. Paul Verryn, a widely respected pastor in Soweto.

Verryn still runs the church house, and Mrs. Mandela has sent dozens of young men to his halfway house for shelter in recent months. An internal investigation by the Methodist Church found no evidence of sexual misconduct by Verryn.

Kgase testified that on Dec. 31, 1988, two days after the beatings, Jerry Richardson, the leader of Mandela’s bodyguard, came to the house with another man, whom Kgase could not identify. Richardson said Kgase, Mono and Mekgwe had been pardoned but that Seipei had admitted selling out four “comrades,” who were shot to death by police officers.

Richardson was convicted last year and sentenced to death for Seipei’s murder.

Kgase escaped from the Mandela home on Jan. 7, 1989, and, two weeks later, after pressure from community leaders, Mono and Mekgwe were released.

Dr. Martin Connell testified Wednesday that he had examined the three men shortly after the alleged beatings and found their injuries to be consistent with the assault they described.