Winnie Mandela stole from poor blacks

last updated 8 January 2015

Johannesburg

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela, was sentenced this week to four years in prison on dozens of counts of theft and fraud. Madikizela-Mandela helped steal more than $100,000 in bank loans and funeral policies intended for poor blacks. Like her ex-husband, Madikizela-Mandela was a prominent leader in the struggle against the racist apartheid regime in 1980s South Africa. “Only a fool would underplay the important role you have played in this country,” Judge Peet Johnson said at her sentencing. Yet “somewhere, it seems, something went wrong.” Madikizela-Mandela, who showed “not one hint” of remorse, could nonetheless be eligible for parole in eight months.