Gunfight Fatal to Driver for Mandela’s Wife

A central Johannesburg gun battle in which Winnie Mandela’s driver-bodyguard was shot to death beside her was a nonpolitical street quarrel, police said Sunday.

But the African National Congress called for further investigation of the possibility that gunmen had tried to assassinate Mandela, the estranged wife of ANC leader Nelson Mandela.

A total of 18 shots were fired in the gunfight that took place in a street crowded with revelers attending a Saturday night festival.

Winnie Mandela, 54, once known as “the mother of the nation,” was unharmed. She was resting at her Soweto home Sunday.

Police said John Lawrence, her driver-bodyguard, was involved in an argument with two black pedestrians who obstructed Mandela’s car. He got out and slapped one of them in the face.

He drove on but when he stopped at a traffic light one of the pedestrians fired at the car. Lawrence returned fire. Lawrence and one of the pedestrians were killed and the second pedestrian was arrested, police said.

“Neither man had any political motivation or involvement,” Police Col. Petrus Kruger told reporters after interviewing Mandela at her home.

But ANC legal department chief Matthew Phosa, one of a group of senior ANC officials who visited Mandela, said the police were prejudging the issue. “We think it’s unwise to rule out a political motive--there are still a lot of unanswered questions,” he said.