Johannesburg - A key witness who vanished from South Africa before testifying at Winnie Mandela's trial over the 1989 murder of Stompie Seipei (14), has applied from England for amnesty, the truth commission has said.
President Nelson Mandela's former wife, subpoenaed to appear before a closed-door commission hearing to answer questions about dead and missing children, meanwhile said in a statement printed by newspapers yesterday that she wanted to speak in public instead.
She had nothing to hide and anything she has to say, she would say out in the open and in front of her country and the world, the Sunday Times of South Africa quoted her statement as saying.
The head of Ms Mandela's infamous bodyguard entourage, the "Mandela United Football Club", was convicted in 1991 of the child's murder in Soweto. Katiza Cebekhulu, a former member of the club, vanished just before he was to tell Ms Mandela's trial of the victim's abduction amid allegations he had been abducted to protect her.