Johannesburg - As Nelson Mandela marked his 95th birthday on Thursday, his grandson Mandla Mandela’s lawyers made an application in the Mthatha High Court to have a previous court order, which saw the remains of three relatives reburied in Qunu, overturned.
Speaking to The Star on Thursday, Mandla’s spokesman Freddy Pilusa confirmed that lawyers had made an application for the court to rescind its earlier decision.
The Mandela family feud is over the remains of Mandela’s eldest son and Mandla’s father, Makgatho Mandela, who died in 2005; Mandela’s first daughter Makaziwe, who died as an infant in 1948; and Mandela’s second son Madiba Thembekile, who died in a car accident in 1969.
All the bodies were originally buried at Mandela’s family homestead in Qunu, but in 2011 Mandla had the bodies exhumed and moved from Qunu to Mvezo, where he is chief.
Last month, 15 Mandela family members filed an urgent court application to have the bodies exhumed and moved back to the family graveyard.
Mandla did not want to comply with the order, and officials from the sheriff’s office had to use a pickaxe to open the gates at his homestead after they found them locked.
Pilusa said Thursday’s application had nothing to do with the return of the bodies to Mvezo.
“He (Mandla) doesn’t want to bother the ancestors. He wants the court to correct its decision,” Pilusa said.
He said the court decision was founded on misleading information about Madiba’s health, because the applicants claimed Mandela was in a “permanent vegetative state”.
The Star