President Nelson Mandela's reputation may be in jeopardy following reports - in a new book and an accompanying television documentary - that he had a hand in the removal from South Africa of a potential key witness in the 1991 trial of his ex-wife, Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Mr Mandela's categorical denial that he was central to the chain of events that led to the disappearance of the witness, Mr Katiza Cebekhulu, and his reappearance in a Zambian prison may offset the harm done. But it is unlikely to prevent continuing conjecture that he was involved.
The problem is that the man who says he was asked on behalf of Mr Mandela to provide a "safe haven" for Mr Cebekhulu is the former Zambian president, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, a respected friend of the African National Congress and an admirer of Mr Mandela.
One theoretical solution to the dilemma is to challenge the accuracy of the quotation attributed to Dr Kaunda in the book, Katiza's Journey, by a British journalist, Fred Bridgland. But too many South Africans, including many ANC members, have seen and heard Dr Kaunda making the statement on the documentary, relayed on South African television. It is widely known that at the time of Mr Cebekhulu's disappearance - February 1991, when Ms Madikizela-Mandela's trial on charges of kidnapping started - Mr Mandela was still fiercely loyal to his wife. As Mr Bridgland makes clear, Mr Cebekhulu, a member of the Mandela United Football Club, as Ms Madikizela-Mandela's bodyguards were known, was a potential threat to the woman who had not yet lost her title "Mother of the Nation". In retrospect, his potential to harm Ms Madikizela-Mandela was double-edged. As a member of Mandela United, he had taken part in the kidnapping of a teenage boy and three young men from the Methodist Church manse in Soweto at the behest of Ms Madikizela-Mandela.
However, he was prepared to testify that Ms Madikizela-Mandela had participated in the assault on the kidnap victims in an attempt to force them to admit that they had been sodomised by a white Methodist clergyman whom, according to Mr Bridgland, she envied and hated.
Mr Cebekhulu, whose release from prison in Zambia was brought about by the former British MP, Baroness Nicholson, has since declared his willingness to testify to Ms Madikizela-Mandela's alleged involvement in several serious crimes, including the death of Stompie Sepei, who was kidnapped from the manse in December 1988.
Mr Cebekhulu has since been heard and seen on South African television accusing Ms Madikizela-Mandela of twice stabbing Sepei.
Mr Cebekhulu, who has applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty, is prepared to repeat these allegations under oath to Archbishop Desmond Tutu's commission.