Police Raid Winnie Mandela’s Home in Corruption Probe

Armed with assault rifles and search warrants, scores of police raided the home and offices Wednesday of Winnie Mandela, the estranged wife of President Nelson Mandela, in a fast-widening investigation into allegations that she steered government housing contracts in exchange for kickbacks and bribes.

Mrs. Mandela, who serves as a deputy minister in her husband’s Cabinet, is the first senior official in the 10-month-old post-apartheid government to come under official scrutiny for alleged corruption in office.

Police spokesman Capt. David Harrington told a news conference that Mrs. Mandela had accepted more than $21,000 to help the Professional Builders company win contracts to build low-cost housing in black squatter camps and was to be paid about $9,000 a month after construction began.

Mrs. Mandela also demanded that the Mandelas’ daughter, Zinzi Mandela-Hlongwane, be given half of the company stock, Harrington said. Mrs. Mandela’s physician and business partner was also to be given shares.

“We are not conducting a witch hunt against Mrs. Mandela,” Harrington said. He said prosecutors would decide whether to file criminal charges.

Mrs. Mandela, deputy minister for arts, culture, science and technology, denied any wrongdoing in a statement released at a news conference in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where she was visiting. “The allegations the police have made against me leave me astounded and unspeakably angry,” she said.

She called the investigation “clearly designed to attract the maximum possible publicity as part of an ongoing campaign to discredit me.”

Mrs. Mandela, 61, reportedly was trying to return home as early as today from her controversial visit to West Africa.

She flew to the desert nation of Burkina Faso last week to attend an African film festival in defiance of Mandela, who had denied authorization for her to go on official travel.

President Mandela was not informed of the unusual daylong police raids before they began early Wednesday, a spokesman said.

The police sorties were approved by the minister of safety and security, Sydney Mufamadi, and the police commissioner, George Fivaz. Both were appointed by Mandela with strict orders to depoliticize police operations.

The Mandelas publicly separated in 1992 when aides convinced Nelson Mandela that Mrs. Mandela had taken a lover. By then, she also had been convicted in court of kidnaping a 14-year-old youth, who was later found killed. After an appeal, Mrs. Mandela was fined rather than imprisoned.