Q&A

SYDNEY MUFAMADI says Tony Leon, the DA leader at the time, requested the reopening of the probe into Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Chris Barron asked the former minister of safety and security . . .

Who ordered the investigation to be reopened?

The national commissioner of police, George Fivaz.

Yes. I said: “By all means, go ahead.”

Why did you try to distance yourself from it?

I didn’t. All I’m doing is correcting the misperception that I initiated it.

Why did you blame Tony Leon?

I didn’t blame Tony Leon. A father came to Tony Leon with information about his missing child. Leon did what any citizen of this country who came across such information is expected to do. That is, to report it to the police and ask them to investigate.

So you’re not suggesting he was behind Winnie’s persecution?

No. He was behind asking the police to ensure that the parents of children who were believed to have suffered at the hands of the Mandela United Football Club should find closure.

Wasn’t it your call to allow the investigation to proceed?

No, it’s for the commissioner to take that decision. If it turned out that that decision was not in the service of justice, he would have had to account to parliament for it.

But you were ultimately responsible, weren’t you?

Yes.

So why does it sound like you’re trying to shift responsibility?

What I am trying to do is educate the public in the face of attempts to miseducate the public.

Did the ANC fear an investigation might be politically damaging?

I received no such memorandum from the ANC. If I had I would have reminded them they are acting outside the policy of the ANC which says the state must serve the people of South Africa without fear or favour.

Is this what the investigation was about?

Absolutely. You can’t have somebody who says my son disappeared, or my daughter disappeared, and you say: “Go and find them yourself.”

Was it politically convenient to have it known that this was a DA initiative?

Well, it actually was.

Why did the former head of the murder and robbery squad, Henk Heslinga, claim in the ‘Winnie’ documentary that you asked him to reopen the investigation so she could be put on trial for murder?

You ask him why he lied, and why Pascale Lamche [the maker of the documentary] is trying so hard to sustain his version. It has caused untold suffering because it creates the impression that Mrs Mandela was being persecuted by the ANC. This can lead to serious divisions in our society.

Has the ANC got anything to be ashamed of regarding its treatment of Winnie?

Absolutely not. When it was still banned it said: “This is our culture and these are the reasons we are asking Mrs Mandela to behave in a particular way.” I don’t call that illtreatment.

Are those reasons as valid today?

As valid today as they were then. And we shouldn’t let Ms Lamche alter the fact that those reasons were given. Her documentary is a complete distortion of what happened.