WORLD : Winnie Mandela Trial Postponed
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A judge today postponed the kidnaping and assault trial of Winnie Mandela until March 6 to give police time to find a key witness allegedly abducted earlier this week.
Judge M. S. Stegmann agreed with prosecutors who said they could not proceed after one witness disappeared and two more refused to testify because they feared for their lives.
Mandela, wife of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, is one of four defendants charged with kidnaping and assaulting four young men at the Mandelas’ Soweto home outside Johannesburg in December, 1988.
Three of the young men are the main state witnesses and the fourth, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, was found dead in January, 1989. The four defendants pleaded innocent Monday.
One witness, Gabriel Mekgwe, disappeared Sunday night hours before he was to take the witness stand. The other witnesses, Kenneth Kgase and Tabiso Mono, refused to give evidence Wednesday.
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