Winnie Mandela Denies Role in the 1988 Beating of 4 Behind Her Home : South Africa: The wife of the ANC leader testifies that she was in another town the day of the alleged abductions and assaults.

Winnie Mandela, battling charges of kidnaping and assault, took the stand in her own defense Tuesday and flatly denied that she beat four young men in rooms behind her home more than two years ago.

Testifying in a clear, solemn voice, Mandela said that on the day of the alleged abductions and assaults she had gone to Brandfort, a black township about four hours’ drive away, to work on projects for the poor.

When she returned to the black township of Soweto outside Johannesburg, she said, she saw no evidence that any of the 17 or 18 youths living in rooms attached to the back of her house had been beaten.

Mandela said she first learned of the allegations two weeks later, when a “crisis committee” of three Soweto anti-apartheid leaders came to her house. The committee said one man was asserting that Mandela had abducted him and three others and was still holding two at the house.

“I was outraged. I was furious . . . at such false and serious allegations,” Mandela testified. “I told them (the panel) that in light of what they alleged, I would have no further contact with them.”

The state contends that on Dec. 29, 1988, several Mandela associates kidnaped four young men from a Methodist church halfway house in Soweto. The body of one of the victims, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, was found a week later in a field; he had been severely beaten and his throat had been slashed. A Mandela associate, Jerry Richardson, has been convicted and sentenced to hang for Seipei’s death.

Two survivors, Kenneth Kgase and Thabiso Mono, have testified that all four were assaulted with whips and fists by Mandela and others. Kgase escaped from Mandela’s house a few days after the beatings. Mono and a third victim were released several weeks later after pleas from community leaders. Mono subsequently disappeared on the eve of his scheduled testimony in the trial.

The survivors contend that Mandela, Richardson and others demanded that the young men admit to having sexual relations with the Rev. Paul Verryn, who runs the church halfway house. Seipei was accused of being a police informer, the men testified.

The hoopla that attended the opening days of the trial was absent on Tuesday, the 30th day of testimony. Only about a dozen well-wishers waited for Mandela outside the courthouse, and no senior African National Congress figure was present in the courtroom. Mandela’s husband, ANC Deputy President Nelson Mandela, was in Zimbabwe on Tuesday for talks with the Pan-Africanist Congress, the ANC’s rival.

Winnie Mandela, under questioning from her attorney, said she first became concerned about the church halfway house in 1987 when one resident reported that Verryn had made sexual advances to him. She said she reported that accusation to the Rev. Frank Chikane, the influential leader of the South African Council of Churches.

On the day of the alleged abductions, she said, a second young man, Katiza Cebekhulu, told her he had been raped by Verryn. Mandela said she took the youth to a local doctor, who said there was no evidence of a rape but suggested Cebekhulu seek psychiatric counseling. (Cebekhulu was charged along with Mandela, but he skipped bail and has not been located.)

Later that day, between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., Mandela left for Brandfort, she testified. The kidnapings are alleged to have occurred that evening. The defense says it intends to call a Brandfort resident as an alibi witness.

When Mandela returned to Soweto on Dec. 31, two days later, she said her friend Xoliswa Falati informed her that “similar victims” of Verryn had been brought to the house during her absence. Falati, a co-defendant in the trial, had apologized and said “she hoped I wouldn’t mind,” Mandela testified.

Mandela said she did not meet the young men or visit the rooms on her property where they were staying.

But, after the visit from the crisis committee two weeks later, Mandela said she asked Richardson what had happened to the youths taken from the Methodist house.

“He said the children were klepped , or slapped, when they first came, that he was questioning them and he klepped them,” Mandela testified. She added that she had scolded him.

“I pulled him up for that,” she said.

Bishop Peter Storey, of the Methodist Church, has testified that church leaders had investigated and cleared Verryn earlier in 1988 of allegations of sexual misconduct. Verryn himself had brought the allegations to Storey’s attention, the bishop said.

Verryn still runs the halfway house, and Winnie Mandela has continued to send wayward young men to the pastor. Verryn has not been called to testify, and at the time of the abductions he was away on vacation.

But the pastor said in a recent interview that the sexual misconduct allegations stemmed from a simmering dispute between halfway house residents and Falati, who stayed there for a time, over dish-washing duties.

In her four hours of testimony, which is to resume today, Winnie Mandela sought to distance herself from the activities of the young people who lived at her home.

“They respected the privacy of the family as much as I respected their privacy,” she said. Most of them had sought refuge at Mandela’s home because they were being harassed by the police and feared detention, Mandela said.

The youths were known as the Mandela United soccer club and wore matching track suits. But they were regarded by neighbors as Winnie Mandela’s bodyguards and were widely feared.

Mandela’s silver-haired attorney, George Bizos, led his client through her life as the embattled wife of the jailed black liberation leader. He focused closely on the five years she spent in Brandfort, to which she was banished by the government in the early 1980s.

During that time, she established a soup kitchen, a day-care center and several other projects to help the community. Mandela said she returned there on Dec. 29, 1988, to restart several of the projects.