Aide to Winnie Mandela; Born May 1949; Died April 2009.
Jerry Vusi Richardson, who has died in prison aged 59, was the former "chief coach" of Winnie Mandela's notorious bodyguard unit, the Mandela United Football Club. He was serving a life sentence for crimes allegedly committed in her name. His death comes when the woman he called "Mummy" is on the threshold of a political comeback.
With the watershed election in South Africa today, the death of Richardson brings back memories of the dark days that accompanied the birth pangs of Nelson Mandela's post-apartheid South Africa in 1990. In May that year - three months after the release of Mandela - Judge O'Donovan convicted Richardson of murdering a black teenager Stompie Moeketsie at the Soweto home of Winnie Mandela the previous December.
Known as the Mother of the Nation, she had taken Stompie and other youths under her wing, making them members of the notorious Mandela United Football Club, whose job it was to protect her and terrorise her political opponents. Richardson was sentenced to death for helping to beat Stompie to death.
Known as the "chief coach" , prison psychologists described Richardson as emotionally stunted, insecure and a willing tool in the hands of any strong-willed person. He was saved from the gallows only on appeal. Seven years after his imprisonment, his lawyer, Henri Joubert, claimed his client had been made the scapegoat for Winnie Mandela who faced her own trial in April 1991. She was sentenced to six years' imprisonment.
Nelson Mandela stood by his wife throughout her trial and her sentence was inexplicably reduced on appeal to a fine of 15,000 rand (then worth about £3000).
Documents relating to this are still top secret in South Africa, but historians and journalists say a deal was done in the case of Winnie in order not to anger or alienate Nelson Mandela, who was engaged in discussions with the white government to bring about majority rule in South Africa without provoking either an African or a European backlash.
Richardson died from what a prison doctor called "natural causes". By Trevor Grundy
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