'It's a lie that Winnie killed Stompie,' says Vytjie Mentor

Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor says it's a fallacy that Madikizela-Mandela had a role in Stompie Seipei's murder.

"Winnie Mandela never killed Stompie Seipei. Winnie Mandela never plotted for the killing of Stompie Seipei. Not a court of law‚ not the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) could link Mama Winnie Mandela directly as having planned and orchestrated or instructed that Stompie should be killed‚” Mentor said on Thursday night.

“It is a lie. It is a fallacy. It is an orchestration that has been perpetuated for decades. It is a lie and a fabrication that the governing party (ANC)‚ [that] I am a member of‚ never bothered to debunk and to expose as an untruth.”

Mentor was speaking on Thursday night at a memorial service at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.

Madikizela-Mandela’s bodyguards‚ known as the Mandela United Football Club‚ abducted four boys from the house of Methodist minister Paul Verryn in December 1988.

Madikizela-Mandela was convicted in 1991 of kidnapping and being an accessory in the assault of Stompie Seipei‚ one of the boys who were kidnapped. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a suspended two-year sentence on appeal.

Madikizela-Mandela died on Monday at the age of 81 at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg after a long illness that had seen her in and out of hospital since the start of the year. She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones‚ the family said in an official statement.