Bones may link Winnie to killings

Published Mar 13, 2013

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Johannesburg - The testimony of a father about an event that happened nearly a quarter of a century ago has linked Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to a double murder.

In 1996, Nicodemus Sono told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he last saw his son Lolo on November 13, 1988. He was in a kombi and had been badly beaten. With him was Madikizela-Mandela and members of the Mandela United Football Club.

On Tuesday, the Hawks said everyone in that blue kombi was a suspect in the murder of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala. They appealed to anyone who might have information about the murders to come forward.

The 25-year-old case heated up on Tuesday when members of the National Prosecuting Authority’s Missing Persons Task Team and the SAPS exhumed two skeletons at Avalon cemetery in Soweto.

The bones, excavated from two pauper graves about 50m apart, are believed to be those of Sono and Shabalala.

Hawks spokesman Captain Paul Ramaloko said two murder dockets were being investigated. They were opened in 1988 when two bodies were discovered with multiple stab wounds in Diepkloof Extension. At the time, they were unidentified.

He said the Hawks began re-examining the case early this year, when they received information from the Missing Persons Task Team that the two activists might be buried in Avalon cemetery.

Ramaloko would not say if Madikizela-Mandela was a suspect, but singled out occupants of the kombi.

“At this stage of the investigation we can’t go pointing fingers at people. But we are interested in what transpired that November.”

He said there might have been other victims in the kombi.

Nicodemus, Lolo’s father, told the TRC in 1996 that his son was taken away on November 13, 1988, in a blue kombi.

Later that night, he was told that Madikizela-Mandela wanted to see him. He climbed into a kombi parked on the street.

“When I got into the kombi, there was Mrs Mandela, Winnie, with the driver Michael and a few other young men, who I did not recognise. My son Lolo was in the kombi. He appeared badly beaten, his face was bruised and he was shivering”.

Madikizela-Mandela told Nicodemus she was taking his son away because he was a spy.

Shabalala, who lived two houses from Sono, was abducted the following day. On November 15, the bodies of two men were found in a field in Diepkloof Extension and taken to the state mortuary.

Madikizela-Mandela was on Tuesday unavailable for comment.

On Tuesday, relatives of the two men watched as the excavation of the graves began. The Sono family sprinkled snuff on the graves, while the Shabalala family prayed for their loved one.

For both families, the discovery of the skeletons marked the beginning of the end of a long search.

“Reality is unfolding, what we never thought we would see, will we see,” said Lolo’s uncle, John Sono.

“We’ve been knocking on walls, mine dumps and mortuaries.”

But there was a hint of anger.

“I am so cross,” said Shabalala’s brother Pilani. “They must pursue this case.”

 

By early afternoon, the bones of two skeletons had been uncovered at the bottom of the graves. The families were allowed to see them.

It was then that Sono’s mother Dorothy told the excavators that one skeleton wasn’t that of her son. There was a length of red rope lying among the bones, traditionally used for protection. Her son hadn’t worn that, she said.

In the next few weeks, the head of the task team, Madeleine Fullard, hopes to get forensic anthropologist Professor Steven Symes to examine the remains.

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