Bodyguard Says He Saw Winnie Mandela Kill Boy -- S. African President's Ex-Wife Publicly Accused For First Time Of Murder During Apartheid Era

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A former bodyguard of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela publicly accused her of murder for the first time yesterday, declaring that he saw President Nelson Mandela's former wife stab a youthful activist whom she accused of being a spy.

The allegation was among the most explosive of those being aired before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a week of hearings focusing on Madikizela-Mandela's role in a series of murders that occurred in the later years of apartheid, or white-minority rule.

With Madikizela-Mandela seeking high office in South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, the murder allegations constituted a potentially decisive moment in her rocky political career.

The weeklong series of hearings that opened Monday has centered on the Mandela United Football Club. The group in fact comprised bodyguards with whom Madikizela-Mandela surrounded herself in the late 1980s while her husband was ending his 27 years of political imprisonment. Since the couple's divorce last year, she has added her maiden name to his last name.

At least a dozen murders are being probed during the questioning of dozens of witnesses, including members of Madikizela-Mandela's old entourage who are accusing her of ordering several killings. Their testimony suggests that a primary motive for her actions was her fear of spies as she tried to thwart the white government's security forces.

In much-anticipated testimony from a figure who now lives in Britain and returned to South Africa under witness protection two days ago, Katiza Cebekhulu became the first witness whose testimony places a murder weapon directly in Madikizela-Mandela's hands.

The victim was a 14-year-old activist, James Moeketsi "Stompie" Seipei, who was murdered in 1988. Pointing at Madikizela-Mandela before hundreds of spectators in an auditorium here, Cebekhulu declared, "I saw her killing Stompie."

He demonstrated how he saw her kneeling and plunging a shiny object into a person he said was Seipei. The testimony paralleled an account in a recent book, "Katiza's Journey," by journalist Fred Bridgland.

But Cebekhulu's testimony was attacked on several counts. For one thing, he had seen the murder at night and without a clear view. For another, his testimony contradicted that of Jerry Richardson, the man convicted of Seipei's murder. Richardson claims Madikizela-Mandela ordered him to kill Seipei but did not kill the boy herself.

During cross-examination, Ishmail Semenya, Madikizela-Mandela's lawyer, hammered on a theme that is her key defense against the allegations: that those who are accusing her had worked for the white government's security forces.

That defense is relevant in Cebekhulu's case because of allegations that he spied for apartheid-era security agents and may have been infiltrated into Madikizela-Mandela's entourage for that purpose.

Semenya raised these allegations and reminded Cebekhulu that his mother told television interviewers that Cebekhulu was friendly with police and military personnel. Cebekhulu denied these assertions.

Cebekhulu returned to Britain late last night, fearing he could be arrested here because of a defamation charge brought against him Monday by Madikizela-Mandela. An earlier arrest warrant - based on his disappearance during a 1991 trial for Seipei's kidnapping - had been quashed to let him return to testify.