Winnie Mandela

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was the wife of Nelson MANDELA until he sacked her. She is also from the same tribe, Xhosa. He managed to stay clean - for public consumption at least. She was involved in inciting murder, murder quite possibly  and fraud. The BBC was very eager to keep us ignorant about the murders. The Wikipedia is only telling us about one of the cases. The Washington Post settles for at least a dozen. Then there was her heavy weight involvement with major criminals that the main stream media keep hidden. One perpetrator and close friend was Hazel Crane, a criminal Jew(?) from Belfast married to an Israeli Mafia boss. See Winnie Mandela And Jews for more and better details.

The stupid looking one is Mandela. The other is the Jew Slovo, his controller.

How To Be A Good Communist by Nelson Mandela

• More on her track record at:-
  Winnie Mandela is found guilty on four charges of kidnapping and four of being an accessory after the fact to assault. Co-accus
• Winnie Mandela charged with kidnapping
• Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela is sentenced to six years
• Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's bodyguards arrested in connection with the death of Stompie Seipei
• TRC gathers evidence against Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
• http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/winnie-mandela-found-guilty - Mandela Convicted Again

 

Mayhem
QUOTE
Winnie Mandela's role in this mayhem is one of the haunting questions of the liberation struggle. On Monday, a decade of allegations, rumor, innuendo and conflicting sworn statements will reach a crescendo as South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission begins a week of public hearings on the activities of the Mandela United Football Club. At least 12 slayings will be examined, including those involving the Chili family.

Two questions -- devastating in their asking -- are central to the hearings: Did Winnie Mandela order her club to kill? Did she kill, as well?

Various witnesses from the football club, whose credibility in some cases is suspect, have alleged that the answer to both questions is yes. These witnesses will testify this week, along with victims like Chili. High-ranking officials of the ruling African National Congress also will testify to explain Winnie Mandela's historic status in the party and their efforts to rein her in when she became wayward. And members of the apartheid-era security apparatus are expected to discuss the use of spies inside Mandela's football club to discredit and manipulate her.
UNQUOTE ex Washington Post

 

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ex Wiki
QUOTE
Her reputation was damaged by.... her sometimes bloodthirsty rhetoric. The most noteworthy example of this being ...........  where she endorsed the practice of necklacing in the struggle to end Apartheid.

Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Richardson, that [ she ] ordered him to abduct and kill  "Stompie Moeketsi" – in January 1989. In 1991 she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault in connection with the death of Moeketsi. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
UNQUOTE  ex Wikipedia which is going very easy on her.

 

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ex Wiki
QUOTE
On 24 April 24 2003 she was found guilty on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison.

Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League. In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
UNQUOTE ex Wikipedia

 

Katiza's Journey
Feeds us more of the dirt. Get it from Fred Bridgeland

 

Mandela Is A Suspect In Two More Murders [ 4 April 2013 ]
QUOTE
The remains of two young men believed to be Lolo Sono, 21, and Siboniso Tshabalala, 19, were dug up in Soweto on Tuesday as their families looked on. If their identities are confirmed, and suspected stab wounds to their bodies verified, police are expected to launch a murder investigation into their disappearance in November 1988.

Sono and Tshabalala were couriers for the ANC’s armed wing during the struggle against Apartheid. But in the tense and deeply paranoid atmosphere of the time, they found themselves accused by Mrs. Madikizela-Mandela and her Soweto-based vigilante gang of being police informers.

Eleven years later, after apartheid ended, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to shed light on past atrocities heard from several witnesses that the pair were abducted by Mrs. Madikizela-Mandela and her gang, and that she had ordered them killed for allegedly betraying the cause championed by her husband.......

 Police are remaining tight-lipped about the sensitive case, with one detective telling a local paper that President Jacob Zuma is being kept updated on its progress. But they have indicated that if the identities of the bodies are confirmed, they will begin a murder investigation.
UNQUOTE
Nelson Mandela was marketed by Marxists. They used him to incite Black Rage and White Guilt. Joe Slovo, a Jew from Lithuania used the BBC as the South African Communist Party's main publicity operation. Mandela's old woman is a crook in her own right but she inclines more to murder, bullying, thieving & corruption generally. Zuma has a track record. He had four wives and 783 corruption charges. Now he has just got four(?) wives.

 

Winnie Mandela Dies In South Africa [ 3 April 2018 ]
QUOTE
'She fought valiantly and sacrificed her life for the freedom of the country': Tributes are paid as Winnie Mandela, controversial anti-apartheid campaigner and ex-wife of Nelson, dies aged 81 after long illness
UNQUOTE
That is what the Daily Mail chooses to allege. I choose to allege that the Mail is lying in its teeth. The comments show that readers are not stupid enough to believe it.

Winnie Mandela was deeply corrupt. She used her bodyguards in some dozen murders - see Mayhem on the point. She got six years for kidnapping. She also colluded with criminal Jews, e.g. the #Ramat Amidar gang. She conspired with Hazel Crane, Jew, diamond smuggler and gang moll. Mandela got away with everything because the fix was in. She was political. Politics trump law and justice every time.
PS The Telegraph is also lying about her. Snivelling to black criminals is policy. Albeit their Mandela Obituary tells some of truth.

Winnie Mandela And The Ramat Amidar Gang [ 12/07/01 ]
Winnie Mandela probably can't say "the Ramat Amidar gang" with the proper accent, but that has not prevented her from getting caught up in the bloody struggle being waged by members of the Israeli group in South Africa. About two years ago Shai Avissar, the gang's leader in Johannesburg, was murdered. Lior Sa'ad, also a member of the group and the prime suspect in the murder, was shot and injured last week on his way to court in Johannesburg.

Avissar was very close to Mandela. He paid for the dress she wore to the ceremony where her husband, Nelson Mandela, was sworn in as president of South Africa in 1994, and bought her a pistol and other clothes as well. For a period of four years, he paid her grocery bills. In June 1994, he bought her a fancy vacation home in Cape Town.

Avissar's assistance was more than just financial. Like any other "good godfather," he also offered Winnie Mandela moral support. When her image hit rock bottom, Avissar met with Israel's ambassador to South Africa at the time, Alon Liel, and asked him and the Israeli Embassy to stand by her. Avissar accosted the ambassador while he was out with friends at a Johannesburg hotel, making an impassioned plea to enlist the state's support to help Mandela.

Avissar also aided Mandela on other occasions. During the sessions of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee which took place in November and December 1997, and dealt with the crimes of apartheid, she was accused of kidnapping and assault. Newspapers the world over covered the sessions extensively. The Reuters News Agency followed all Mandela's movements, reporting on November 2, 1997 that she looked quite forlorn: "By the lunch break, she could be seen biting her lower lip," it noted.

Mandela was not alone in her despair. In a film shot by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) during the sessions, Avissar was shown sitting behind her, listening closely to her every word, ready at any instant to extend his assistance to her.

Avissar did not arouse any special attention. He meticulously maintained anonymity. Only a few people knew who he was. Even The New York Times did not succeed in exposing his identity. In an article in June 1995, journalist Bill Keller described the new people in Mandela's company as "people who are removed from the idealism of the movement. Prominent among them is a white man from the upper class who bought her a fancy house in the suburbs." Not one word as to Avissar's name, origins or occupation.

Sudden disappearance
The close ties between the leader of the Israeli gang, who grew up in Jerusalem, and the woman known as the "mother of the South African nation" were severed on November 17, 1999, when Avissar disappeared. He walked out of a restaurant in Johannesburg toward his silver BMW and was never seen again. Mandela undertook an exhaustive search for him. His body was found four months later, in February 2000, in a shallow grave near Pretoria.

This past April, Israeli Lior Sa'ad was arrested on suspicion of murdering Avissar. Sa'ad is suspected of three other murders and 17 attempted murders.

In South Africa, this whole affair has not left the headlines. Last week, gunfire was directed at the police van that transported Sa'ad and four other prisoners from the Brixton jail to the courthouse in Johannesburg. In the statement the Johannesburg police subsequently made to the newspapers, the incident was described in very dry terms: Two men riding a blue motorcycle closed in on the right side of the police vehicle and opened fire from an automatic weapon. Then they fled.

The driver of the police van continued to drive to the courthouse, where he requested assistance. Only there was it discovered that one prisoner had been killed, another seriously injured, and that Sa'ad was lightly injured in his pelvis. The latter was treated at a nearby hospital and returned a few days later to the courthouse.

"At this point, the reason for the attack is unknown," wrote First Sergeant Amanda Rostoff in her press release. The South African newspapers reported that the gunmen had tried to assassinate Sa'ad, who was suspected of murdering Avissar. Sa'ad's trial will begin only next year. Johannesburg's courts are overloaded, explains his lawyer, Lawley Shein. Winnie Mandela, who knew Avissar well, will apparently be summoned to testify, which will turn the murder trial of a member of the Ramat Amidar gang into an international event.

Mandela's Israeli acquaintances are not surprised by this new imbroglio. "All the troubles in the world stick to Winnie Mandela. She is the type of person who attracts negative elements," says Liel, who was ambassador to South Africa from 1992 to 1994.

Knesset Member Naomi Chazan, a professor of political science and an expert on Africa, says that the connection between Mandela and the Ramat Amidar gang does not surprise her.

"Too many dark things are connected with her past," says Chazan. "When she visited Israel last year, they tried to arrange a meeting between us but I declined. I did not want to meet with her because of certain episodes in her past that were unclear to me."

Chazan is referring to the murder of the youth, Stompie Seipei, who was kidnapped from a youth hostel in 1988 under orders from Winnie Mandela, beaten, and killed two days later. Mandela was convicted of responsibility for kidnapping and assault, and was sentenced to six years in prison, but this was commuted to a fine.

Arthur Goldreich [ another Jew ], who was close to Nelson Mandela during the struggle against apartheid, says that Winnie still wields a great deal of political power in Soweto: "Therefore anyone who can, sticks close to her. She is an intelligent woman with great power. One thing that is clear to me is that she is not naive. Her connections do not stem from naivete nor from inexperience or ignorance."

At least some of Avissar's activities were known to Mandela. In 1993, he and his friend, Hazel Crane, [ Belfast, Jew, IRA(?) ] were accused of illegal trading in diamonds in Cape Town. Avissar was acquitted. Crane was convicted and fined $8,500. Mandela knew about this story.

"During that period, there were murderers in the parliament whose hands were dripping with blood and others did their best to finance parties that tried to kill us," Mandela told reporters, when asked about the nature of her relationship with Avissar and Crane. "It's news to me that [illegal trading in] diamonds is worse than that. Diamonds are a gift from God that were controlled by the previous regime."

Who was Avissar?
Shai Avissar was born and raised in Jerusalem's Beit Hakerem neighborhood. His father was a garage owner who died while Avissar was attending an ORT technical high school in Jerusalem. This past week, his mother refused to say anything about him. Last year, his brother, Uri, told The South African Times that he knew of his brother's friendship with Yossi Harari, head of what became known as the Ramat Amidar gang. "But I do not want any connections with Harari," he added.

Avissar studied automobile mechanics and was very popular: "I remember him always wandering around in tight shorts and close-fitting black shirts. He behaved like a sort of `toy' criminal, with the clothes and the sauntering gait, but he never hurt anyone," one of his friends told Jerusalem's Kol Ha'ir in March 2000.

The ORT class of `82 yearbook has a poem about Avissar that loosely translates as, "Avissar as a student was make-believe / from our class he was told twice to leave. But there's one field in which all he managed to defeat / there was not a sandwich in the ORT school from which he did not eat."

Avissar served as a driver in the Israel Defense Forces. After his discharge, he moved to Tel Aviv and from there, in 1990, to South Africa. In that country, he traded in diamonds and became identified with what is known as the Ramat Amidar gang. Gang leader Yossi Harari once claimed in a newspaper interview that he objects to violence, and that he is a businessman who makes sure that all his dealings are legal, yet in the past 10 years, his friends have been accused of kidnapping and murder, mainly in incidents involving the rival Pardes Katz Gang, led by Yitzhak ("Hishi") Hadif.

During a gang war, Yossi Harari's nephew, Eyal Harari, was murdered in 1996. In May 1998, Yossi's twin brother, Roni, was injured by gunshots fired by masked men as he sat in a coffee shop in Givatayim.

In the early 1990s, about 20 members of the Ramat Amidar gang moved to Johannesburg. During their first few years there, they were involved mainly in extorting the city's Jews. The crime rate mounted to the point where members of the Jewish community were forced to hire security guards to watch their homes and synagogues.

"The Israeli gang caused a rift between the Jewish community and the Israelis in Johannesburg," Liel recalls. "The rift was so great that Jews would not even allow the children of Israelis to attend the Jewish schools. The Israeli children who anyway went to the Jewish schools were called `Fish,' which stands for `F--ing Israeli sh-head.' Even my children were called that. They [the gang] made a bad name for the [Israeli] community to this day. Because of that gang, Israelis are not active in the Jewish community."

Yehuda Kay, chairman of the Board of Deputies of the Johannesburg Jewish community, does not like to be asked about the gang's relationship to the Jewish community: "It doesn't affect us," he asserts. "They are criminals and everyone knows they are Israelis. It has not become a Jewish issue, but has stayed in the criminal arena. It is not our problem but rather Israel's."

Such incidents cause embarrassment to the Jewish community, according to Sidney Shapira, president of the South Africa Federation in Israel. "A gang like that also affects Israel's relationship with South Africa," he notes.

Leadership struggle
The Israeli gang's hangout in Johannesburg used to be the Brazilian cafe on the main street of the suburb of Norwood. Lior Sa'ad arrived on the scene in 1991. He was only 21 years old at the time, but was already considered a shark. He was a clothing salesman who was struggling to maintain his leadership of the gang.

Sa'ad had a good set of cards for the opening gambit. He is tall and bearded, and has a tattoo on his neck and a pigheaded nature. More than once there were violent scuffles at the Brazilian cafe that were intended to establish his leadership status.

Within a year, four Israelis had been murdered in Johannesburg, Amir Aziza being one of them. Aziza's murder was attributed to Harari's gang. In a newspaper interview at the end of 1998, however, Yossi Harari denied any involvement. "Many times I have been accused of a connection to things that I have never heard of," he said.

In September 1998, Harari had arrived in Johannesburg. He spoke of his fondness for the city and added, in that same interview: "I live in a villa without a bodyguard, in freedom. A very close friend lives with me. I get along there better than anywhere in the world. I have a lot of friends and everyone helps everyone else. When things are going well for you, you manage with the language and with the distance."

It is not clear if Harari lived with Avissar or with Sa'ad. In any event, during the few months he resided in South Africa before returning to Israel, Harari crowned Avissar head of the gang.

As part of a plea bargain in March 2000, the Tel Aviv District Court convicted Yossi Harari of conspiring to murder Avi Bitan, a member of the Pardes Katz gang, of conspiring to commit a crime, and of possessing and supplying arms. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. This week, he refused to respond to questions regarding Avissar's murder. Harari's lawyer, Yoram Hacham, says that his client is no longer connected with crimes either here or in South Africa.

When Harari returned to Israel, Avissar and Sa'ad were forced to cope alone with the animosity that had developed between them. Although the official leadership of the gang had been transferred to Avissar, Sa'ad was in no rush to give it up: He wanted to be the boss and believed that things could be done differently. Avissar seemed too gentle to him. A bitter dispute erupted between them over the issue of how much money should be transferred to Harari in Israel.

According to the Johannesburg police, the so-called Israeli mafia [ South African Police Confirm Existence Of Israeli Mafia & Mob Murders Stun South Africa ] has traditionally been very active in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban in the illegal trade of diamonds, drugs and weapons, and in the sale of "black dollars." The Harari gang had specialized in the latter scam - aimed at facilitating smuggling of the U.S. currency into South Africa - whereby members dyed a few dollar bills black and promised the potential buyers that they could remove the color with a special chemical and return the bills to their original state.

Smugglers were offered $1 million in black dollars for $50,000. When the buyers would later opened the suitcase, however, they would find piles of black paper that no chemical could ever turn back into money. Deals like this yielded immense profits, and Avissar sent a fat percentage to Harari.

Sa'ad wanted to cut ties with Harari and objected to the transfer of the funds. Sa'ad also did not like Avissar's ties with Winnie Mandela and felt that with Mandela at his side, Avissar would boost his power to the point that he, Sa'ad, would never succeed in subduing his rival. The police spokesman said that, in the end, Avissar's murder was carried out in the wake of a massive deal that did not go through, and as a result of the increased hostility between the two would-be gang leaders.

Expensive tastes
The connection between Mandela and Avissar was made through Hazel Crane, Avissar's girlfriend for many years. The two were married in 1996 and divorced a year later, but continued to maintain close a friendship thereafter.

Short, blonde, Jewish and dressed in expensive designer clothes, Crane was a nurse by profession who came to South Africa from Zimbabwe in 1981, after her husband was killed. At the time, she was in her eighth month of pregnancy and the mother of a little boy. She arrived in Johannesburg with four suitcases and went into business selling insurance and real estate, and was involved in the coffee and diamond trades. Being a businesswoman, she later said, exposed her to the hostility of a world ruled by men. She became active in support groups for businesswomen and in the Women's League of the African National Congress (ANC), whose president was Winnie Mandela. The two met at league activities and Crane became very enthusiastic: Close acquaintanceship with a woman of Mandela's status could only be beneficial to her, she reasoned.

"When I met her, I expected to find a `warrior woman,' but she was not the big tiger I had been led to believe she was," Crane told the London Daily Telegraph in March 1996. "If you meet Mrs. Mandela, she doesn't come across as the aggressive person you see on television and in the papers," she told the London Times in June 1994.

From the moment the two women met, it was hard to separate them. It was natural for Avissar to blend in to that relationship, as he understood that proximity to Mandela would earn him respectability.

Despite their basic differences, Avissar and Mandela did have something in common: love of the good life. Avissar's trademark was his diamond-encrusted Rolex watch, which he showed to anyone he happened to meet, priding himself with the fact that he paid $40,000 for it. He also loved expensive clothes. His favorite designers were Versace and Armani. When he disappeared, the Johannesburg police issued a short description of him: "Sporting diamond jewelry worth 600,000 rands, including a diamond-encrusted Rolex and wearing a Versace suit."

Avissar's natural habitat was the Norwood suburb of Johannesburg. The Jewish "excommunication" of Israelis did not include him. Jerusalem Post journalist Michael Hamlin described him as being surrounded by rich young Jewish girls who are known in South Africa as "kugels" (the equivalent of the Jewish American Princess). According to Hamlin, these girls spent most of their daytime hours in shopping sprees, meeting with their friends at Johannesburg's fashionable coffee shops and chatting on their tiny cellular phones and, in the evenings, sniffing cocaine. (Avissar's divorce from Crane evidently stemmed from his relationships with other women; she claimed that he was constantly unfaithful to her.)

Thus, in Norwood, as in Jerusalem, Avissar was the life of any party. Tall, balding, charming, delightful - that is how Johannesburg police spokeswoman Chris Wilken described him a few weeks after his body was found.

Defending Winnie
Despite Winnie Mandela's image as a "social warrior," she too has always known how to enjoy the finer things in life. In South Africa, people don't talk much about it, says someone who knows her, but she suffered so much for so many years that to this day, there are still people who feel the need to defend her.

It is a well-known secret among her acquaintances that Mandela was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. In his autobiography, "Freedom Fighter," Nelson Mandela gently hints at this: "In South African terms, Winnie was the daughter of a well-to-do family that partially protected her from the unpleasant reality of life in South Africa. At the very least, she never had to ask herself where her next meal was coming from. Before her marriage, she had an easy life among relatively wealthy circles, very different from the lifestyle of the freedom fighter, [who lived from] from hand to mouth."

In the 38 years that she was married to Nelson - they divorced in March 1996 - Winnie did not get used to living from hand to mouth. In "The Lady: The Life and Times of Winnie Mandela," biographer Emma Gilbey writes that in 1977, when Winnie was exiled to a the black township of Brandport, the local people felt alienated "by her fancy clothes and her obvious wealth."

Nelson Mandela's official biographer, Fatima Meer, described Winnie's home in Brandport: "Gradually," she wrote, "a refrigerator, television and cooking stove were brought to her home" - and this at a time when Winnie wrote that she herself saw "families whose supper, whose only meal, consisted of cornmeal gruel with salt water."

"The impression of her wealth grew when she visited her husband in prison in the 1980s and stayed overnight at the most expensive hotel in Cape Town," writes Gilbey.

Housing was always a sensitive issue where Mandela was concerned: Her huge 15-room house in Soweto is located in a neighborhood called Beverly Hills. The town's residents mockingly call it "Winnie Mandela's castle": It is surrounded by a wall and contrasts starkly with the shacks around it.

"Times are hard," Hazel Crane told journalists who asked her questions about Winnie's financial situation. "Winnie has the upkeep of a huge home. She has an MP's salary and no other sources of income. Like anyone else, Mandela, too, has a tendency to get into financial difficulties."

Crane and Avissar were there to help her get out of those difficulties. For example, in June 1994, while Mandela was the deputy minister of art, culture, science and technology, they bought her a home in Cape Town worth $300,000. The story was leaked to the press and there was a scandal. Crane called a press conference at which she attacked anyone who dared to say a word against the gift that she had given Mandela.

"What about other politicians who bought large houses?" she asked. "What about Nelson Mandela? After his divorce from Winnie, Nelson went to live in the prestigious Hapton neighborhood ... For me, Winnie symbolizes pain and suffering. It is sad to see that my assistance should now cause her so much pain. Winnie herself said that the gift was extraordinary and very much appreciated."

Contrary to popular belief, Avissar said at that time, Mandela was far from being rich. "People don't know Winnie," he said. "She is truly a wonderful woman. She deserves a big house. After all, she is still the president's wife, is she not?"

Borrowed jewels
Nelson Mandela separated from his wife, among other reasons, because of her flashy lifestyle. He preferred a modest image while Winnie has always loved luxury. Her critics have even called her "the black Evita" for, like Peron, she too expressed her concern for the wretched and the downtrodden - but didn't give up her own fancy dresses.

At Nelson's swearing-in ceremony in May 1994, two years after they had separated but before their divorce, Winnie arrived wearing a dress that Avissar and Crane had bought for her. The expensive jewelry she wore for the occasion was borrowed from Crane.

At the last moment, before the beginning of the ceremony Winnie was shunted from the row of honored guests to the back. She also did not sit beside Nelson at the banquet following the ceremony. Winnie felt humiliated, but at least she was well dressed. She even wore designer clothes for her visits to Nelson in prison.

Between February 1990 and June 1995, he financed his wife's whims to the tune of $700,000 [ Where did that come from? Editor ]. In March 1996, they divorced, to Winnie's chagrin - and Crane and Avissar were again there to provide her with support.

In a conversation with a writer for the London Daily Telegraph beside her swimming pool, Crane denounced Nelson for the decision to divorce his wife: "Mandela should have remembered that a husband's duty is to his wife and family," she said.

The divorce did nothing to dampen Winnie's lust for wealth. She turned her house in Soweto, in which she had lived with Nelson when they were younger, before he was imprisoned, into a museum. Small bottles of "hero's earth" from her garden are sold for $11 each to tourists who visit the house.

In 1997, Mandela approached the BBC and offered them an interview "about everything" for $800,000. Crane had made the initial contacts with the BBC, and when it rejected the offer, Mandela accepted Crane's advice and took her story elsewhere.

Also that year, Mandela was forced to repay the South African government $15,000 in expenses incurred when she had gone on a tour of Ghana in 1994; the government declared that it had not authorized the trip. She was also asked to pay a sum of $8,500 for unauthorized use of government vehicles.

At one point, Winnie flew first class to London on British Airways, using a diplomatic passport, despite the fact that she was not authorized to carry one. When asked to pay $1,500 for her luggage, she had to ask other passengers to lend her the money. Afterward she asked the airline for a refund so that she could repay them.

Crane volunteered to be Mandela's spokeswoman: "She flies with a diplomatic passport," Crane told reporters, but declined to explain why Mandela had one.

Avissar's disappearance put an abrupt end to the fun. Crane hid, apparently in the U.S., in fear of the murderers; before she left South Africa, she said that gang members were threatening her life and that she knew who Avissar's murderer was. "He thinks he is a Rambo, but he is really afraid of his own shadow," she said.

Crane related that Winnie Mandela was involved in the search for Avissar: "Mandela had people in the field investigating the circumstances of the disappearance," Crane noted. "We searched in Orlando, Soweto and Alexandra, but we didn't find anything. We will keep looking everywhere in South Africa."

Avissar's family appealed to Alon Liel for help. He suggested they see the tapes recorded by the BBC, which documented the sessions of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Perhaps there, in the connection between Avissar and Mandela, they would find a thread that would lead to Avissar's whereabouts.

Sa'ad's name was not mentioned specifically, but it was clear that the police were searching for him. He was arrested in April of this year on the border with Mozambique; he had fled after Avissar disappeared, and had arrived in that country from Portugal. Sa'ad's lawyer claimed that he had been kidnapped and taken to the South African border, where he was arrested by South African police without an extradition warrant.

Crane feels no sympathy for Sa'ad: "I don't care what happens to him," she told the South Africa Sunday Times last week. "It is impossible to bring Shai back, but Sa'ad has to learn that he will pay for it."

Ever since Avissar disappeared, Crane has lowered her profile and has reduced her public appearances at parties. Her relationship with Mandela has also unraveled recently. But doubtless, they will meet again, in court: the Jewish coffee and diamond trader, divorced wife of an Israeli gang member, and the freedom fighter who benefited from the gang member's money.

Sources
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie_Madikizela-Mandela
and
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/s_africa/stories/mayhem112497.htm