The crude exchange between ANC MP Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and a police officer has emerged for the first time.
In a statement on Wednesday last night, her bodyguard Jacob Monare claims the police officer, identified as Jannie Odendaal, pointed a finger at the ANC veteran and used the f-word more than once.
Monare said the altercation came about after he and her driver Philemon Buthelezi were stopped for speeding. He said his explanation to Odendaal - that they were transporting Mandela who was late for a funeral - fell on deaf ears.
When the situation started to get out of hand, the former ANC Women’s League president stepped out of the car to intervene. Monare claims, Odendaal then said: “I don’t give a f*** who you are, get back to the f****** car.”
Monare said Odendaal’s partner did not say anything to stop him. The partner, he further claimed, hit him on the knee with an R5 rifle.
He said “Mama” Mandela then instructed them to drive away because the situation was getting ugly. The drama unfolded on December 30, on the M1 north, when Mandela’s car, an Audi A6, was stopped on the freeway by Odendaal and his partner, driving an unmarked BMW police car.
After they stopped, Monare said, he approached Odendaal and his partner, acknowledged that they were driving fast and offered an explanation. The two, he claims, were not interested.
Odendaal’s version of events differs. He claimed that the man got out of the car and pushed him. “He screamed at me saying: ‘Who do you think you are coming to search this car. It’s not apartheid anymore’.”
Odendaal said he had no idea who the man was and went back to his car to fetch his Taser. “I said to him that if he touched me again I would Taser him,” said Odendaal.
A Taser is an electroshock weapon used to send high voltage surging through the target to incapacitate them temporarily.
The driver of the Audi, whom Odendaal described as very polite, seemed to want to explain who they were.
“But the first man wouldn’t let him and I kept on asking (if we were) policemen.”
At that point Madikizela-Mandela got out of the car and screamed at the police, telling her bodyguards they had to leave now.
“Her face was pale and she looked very old. I didn’t recognise her at first; she didn’t look anything like in the newspapers.”
Odendaal said the two bodyguards then got into the car and drove off.
The policeman returned to his unit, wrote a report and forgot about the incident.
“But last week we were called into the head office and spoke to a general.”
Odendaal said he was told the bodyguard had laid charges against him and his partner. An assault charge was laid against his partner because the bodyguard said he had been hit on the knee with an R5 rifle, “which was absolute rubbish”, said Odendaal. A charge of intimidation and pointing a firearm was laid against Odendaal.
“The general said this was political and we should go and apologise and the case would go away,” said Odendaal. “I was prepared to apologise, but then I was told General Mzwandile Petros said we should not go as we were just doing our jobs. We were told there would be no case opened against us.”
But last week Odendaal was told he was being transferred to the Soweto flying squad, 140km from his home. His partner, who lives in Soweto, was transferred to the East Rand. Odendaal said policemen were generally transferred if there were charges against them, but nobody had informed him of any.
“I’m now on leave. The way this has been handled… the racial insults, the lack of respect for police…”
A few hours later he was told that he would be placed on suspension for speaking to the media.
Odendaal has been with his unit for 19 years. “I devoted my life to that unit, my personal life suffered. How can they treat me like this?”
Madikizela-Mandela’s spokesman David Webb has not yet commented on the incident.
The DA has called for an investigation.
“Ms Mandela is a Member of Parliament, no more, no less. She has no special dispensation when it comes to breaking the law.”