Winnie Mandela Is Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison

Winnie Mandela was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison by a judge who said she misused her leadership position and showed “not the slightest remorse” for her role in abducting four young black men who were later brutally beaten at her home.

A courtroom crowded with Mandela supporters listened in stunned silence as Rand Supreme Court Judge Michael S. Stegmann sentenced one of the world’s best-known anti-apartheid figures to jail for the common crimes of kidnaping and accessory to assault.

“You, Mrs. Mandela, bear a heavy responsibility,” Stegmann told Mandela, who stood facing him in the defendants’ dock. “A position of leadership is not something that entitles you to play fast and loose with the liberty of others for your own purposes.”

Mandela’s attorney, George Bizos, immediately applied for permission to appeal the verdict, citing several dozen instances in which he contended that the judge had erred or drawn conclusions not supported by the evidence. For Mandela to be allowed to appeal, Judge Stegmann must rule at a later hearing that the appeal has a “reasonable prospect” of success.

Mandela was allowed to remain free, and her bail was set at 200 rand ($80).

Several hundred African National Congress supporters, surrounded by blue-uniformed policemen, turned out to greet Mandela, who is the ANC’s social welfare director. A few carried placards reading: “No Justice Under an Unjust Government” and “Stop Harassing Our Mother, Winnie Mandela.”

Although some militant ANC leaders have said that Mandela’s conviction and imprisonment would touch off mass township protests, her husband, ANC Deputy President Nelson Mandela, appeared to play down the impact that the verdict would have on his negotiations with President Frederik W. de Klerk’s white-led government.

Nelson Mandela, who was out of town during the sentencing, said he remains convinced of his 56-year-old wife’s innocence and confident that she will eventually be cleared of all the charges against her.

“I trust that soon her name will be cleared completely,” Mandela said after a speech to white students in Stellenbosch. “In the meantime, I appeal to all to leave matters to the courts.” Referring to the appeal, he added: “The last word . . . has not been spoken.”

Winnie Mandela, appearing confident, blamed her troubles on the media, which have thoroughly reported the allegations against her for nearly two years.

“We have been found guilty by the media,” she told cheering supporters.

Although she is a controversial figure inside the ANC, most of those who gathered outside the courthouse Tuesday took a dim view of the government’s decision to prosecute her.

“They are trying to demoralize his (Nelson Mandela’s) spirit,” said Tsepo Lentsoane, a black man in his 30s. “They are capitalizing on the mistakes of his wife.”

Judge Stegmann concluded the three-month trial Tuesday by ordering Winnie Mandela to serve consecutive prison terms of five years for her conviction on four counts of kidnaping and one year for her conviction on four counts of being an accessory to assault after the fact.

The charges stemmed from the Dec. 29, 1988, abduction and beating of four young black men from a Methodist church halfway house in Soweto. One of the victims, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, died several days later, and one of Mandela’s bodyguards has been convicted and sentenced to hang in that case.

Two of the men were kept at Mandela’s home for 18 days, and a third escaped after nine days. Seipei disappeared after three days, and his body was later found in a Soweto field.

Mandela had contended that the men were brought to her home to protect them from improper sexual advances made by the Rev. Paul Verryn, who ran the church house. Stegmann found, however, that the men were held against their will and assaulted in an effort to force them to bring charges against Verryn.

On Tuesday, Bizos, Mandela’s lawyer, asked the judge for leniency.

He argued, among other things, that publicity surrounding the allegations had been the “greatest punishment” for a woman of her stature.

But prosecutor Jan Swanepoel, in asking for a jail term, suggested that the defense did not consider the abductions serious because the victims “were from a less privileged part of society.”

The judge agreed with the prosecution, pointing out that the victims were wayward young men who had taken refuge in the church house.

The judge said that Mandela, as a community leader, had a special responsibility to the victims. “You fundamentally misunderstood or ignored your responsibility as a leader,” he told her.

In her lawyers’ application for permission to appeal, Mandela argued that Stegmann’s verdict was faulty for a number of reasons. Among other things, Mandela contends that the evidence does not support the judge’s finding that Mandela ordered the men forcibly removed from the church house, that she was trying to oust the church house pastor from his job or that she was part of a conspiracy to kidnap the men.