Mbuso Mandela
The grandson of South African hero, late Nelson Mandela, appeared briefly in the Johannesburg Magistrates’ Court on Monday on a charge of rape.
“He made a brief appearance on a charge of the rape of a 15-year-old girl,” Gauteng police spokesperson Brigadier Mashadi Selepe said.
Selepe said that because he was charged with a Section 6 offence, his bail application was expected to start on Friday, August 21. Until then, he would remain in custody.
In terms of these higher schedule offences, the Criminal Procedure Act places the onus on the bail applicant to show exceptional circumstances for release ahead of a trial.
Media reports suggest that the girl was followed to a toilet where she was allegedly raped in a cubicle on the night of 7 August. Mbuso was arrested last weekend after the alleged victim, who is receiving counselling, opened a case against him.
Asked to comment on media reports that Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela had sent a bodyguard posing as a policeman to the girl, Selepe said the police had not received a complaint in this regard.
The Daily Sun quoted a family spokesperson as saying the girl’s father had tried to open a case with no success. According to the spokesperson, Madikizela-Mandela asked the girl’s family to give her family time to deal with the issue.
“Instead, Winnie’s bodyguard went to the family pretending to be a cop. The father was told there was no need to arrest the suspect, but when the father asked to see his badge, he didn’t have one. It turned out he had been sent by Winnie,” he reportedly said.
The Sunday Sun reported that after a meeting at her home in Soweto, Madikizela-Mandela promised to hand her grandson over to the police.