Johannesburg - Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has back-tracked on parts of her testimony where she claimed she was introduced to businessman Fana Hlongwane by Duduzane Zuma.
Mentor testified at the Zondo commission in August and told commission chair Raymond Zondo that when she was on an Emirates flight to Dubai in 2010, Zuma introduced her to a man he referred to as chairman. She identified the man as Hlongwane.
Now her lawyers have written to Zondo backtracking on this part of her statement. Her lawyers said after Mentor testified she decided to view images of Hlongwane online and it's then that she realised that she had made a mistake and that he was not the man she was introduced to on the flight.
"After reflection of those images, she has come to realise that they are not the same person she was introduced to by Mr Duduzane Zuma on the Emirates flight as "Chairman"," said the letter penned by her lawyers Webber and Wentzel.
However, Mentor insists that she stands by her testimony that she was introduced to a man on the flight by Zuma. She is willing to testify and apologise in person at the commission, her lawyers said.
"Our client accordingly wishes to concede that she made an error in identifying the person introduced to her, in the circumstances our client wishes to furnish and herby give a sincere apology to Mr Hlongwane for any embarrassment and/or adverse imputation which the mistake might have caused," said her lawyers.
Mentor published the letter on her Facebook page on Friday morning and said; "I am not afraid to admit it and to apologize when I made an error. I do this with humility. But I am proud that I can recognize an error and admit it when I do recognize it. It's me that asked both Commission Lawyers and my Webber Wentzel lawyers to write this letter. I asked them many weeks ago already," she said.
The former MP was expected to return and clarify parts of her testimony at the inquiry this week, but that has been postponed due to the need for further investigations.