Drama in the dock at Winnie trial

2003-04-22 13:57

Pretoria - A young woman disrupted the fraud and theft trial of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela on Tuesday when she tried to enter the dock.

The intruder shouted: "The law in South Africa is on paper."

One of Madikizela-Mandela's bodyguards stopped the woman from reaching the African National Congress Women's League president.

As he carried the young woman from the courtroom, she protested: "This is sexual harassment."

The reason for her behaviour was not immediately clear, and court proceedings resumed after a brief adjournment.

Earlier in the morning, the court was told by the State counsel that Madikizela-Mandela had been an appalling witness in her testimony last month.

"She was fuzzy in her answers," said Jan Ferreira.

"Her evidence was so bad one could equate it to not having testified at all."

Madikizela-Mandela and her co-accused, broker Addy Moolman, have pleaded not guilty to 60 charges of fraud and 25 of theft.

The State alleges that official league letters, which carried Madikizela-Mandela's signature, were used to fraudulently get loans from Saambou Bank for people who were not working for the league.

The theft charges relate to amounts of R360 deducted from loan applicants' bank accounts for a funeral policy that allegedly did not exist.

Concluding her testimony last month, Madikizela-Mandela said she signed the documents her secretary brought to her without checking them.

Ferreira argued on Tuesday: "One would, however, expect... that a former deputy minister and now president of an esteemed organisation... would diligently take notice of the exact content of documents she attaches her signature to."

- SAPA