Jailed AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo won’t be allowed to attend the funeral of a direct family member because he is a “maximum offender”, according to prison officials in East London.
Dalindyebo, who was very close to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is serving a 12-year jail term at East London’s West Bank prison for crimes - kidnapping, arson and defeating the ends of justice - committed in 1995 and 1996 against his subjects on his instructions.
He was found guilty by the Mthatha High Court in 2009 and started serving his term in December 2015.
By custom and virtue of being the king, Dalindyebo enjoys supreme status in the Madiba clan, of which the Mandelas are part.
The jailed monarch was so close to Madikizela-Mandela that he penned an emotional letter from his prison cell on her 80th birthday in 2016:
“You have made a contribution in my life as a mother through my dark days when I needed love and comfort during extremely cold and life-threatening days of apartheid when I was far away from home.”
At the time Dalindyebo, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier and ANC activist who spent time exiled in Zambia, said he was in a “dark prison cell”.
This week prison officials in East London said Dalindyebo had yet to inform them that he wanted to attend Madikizela-Mandela’s funeral on Saturday, April 14.
Correctional Services’ provincial spokesperson Vuyo Gadu said: “King Dalindyebo is categorised as a maximum offender and, even if he was a direct family member, his application would not yield the positive response,” said Gadu.
According to Gadu, compassionate leave is granted to inmates for attendance at funerals or a serious sickness where it is expected that the person is “dying”.
“Such a concession must preferably take place within normal working hours as far as possible and for the necessary period of the time on the same day. This concession is only granted when it concerns a direct family member (father, mother, child, spouse, brother, sister, grandfather and grandmother).”
Meanwhile, AbaThembu spokesperson Chief Zwelenqaba Mgudlwa said acting king Azenathi Zanelizwe Dalindyebo would visit Madikizela-Mandela’s Soweto home this weekend to pay respects.
Mgudlwa stated, in line with the jailed monarch’s wishes, that the AbaThembu nation wanted Madikizela-Mandela to be buried next to former president Nelson Mandela’s grave in Qunu.
“Madikizela-Mandela is still our wife as AbaThembu nation.
“In our custom, there is no such a thing called divorce,” Mgudlwa said.
The Sunday Independent