As the world prepares for the passing of the former South African President Nelson Mandela, his family has been mired in legal woes.
First there was the legal fight brought on by his daughters, Zenani and Makaziwe, over who should manage the anti-apartheid icon’s assets.
“The battle on who should own the Nelson Mandela brand has intensified as two of the former South African president’s daughters, Zenani and Makaziwe, sue their father for the rights to his artworks and control of his millions.
According to a newspaper report, the two sisters intend to fight an April 2004 Johannesburg High Court order which gave Mandela the right to instruct Ismail Ayob, his then lawyer, to stop managing his financial, personal and legal affairs.
The court order barred Ayob from selling any of Mandela’s artworks.” – ibtimes.co.uk
Now a second Mandela family conflict has been resolved by South Africa’s Eastern Cape High Court.
“A judge in the Eastern Cape High Court, near the small, rural villages where Nelson Mandela was born and raised, ordered his eldest grandson on Wednesday to return the bodies of several family members to the village where Mr. Mandela, the former South African president and anti-apartheid leader, has said he wishes to be buried.
“The feud over the bodies between the grandson, Mandla Mandela, and a coterie of other family members led by his eldest daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, has riveted the attention of South Africans as Mr. Mandela, 94, remains in critical condition in a Pretoria hospital, clinging to life.” – nytimes.com
The bodies in question are those of Mandela’s eldest son, Mandla Mandela’s father, Makgatho Mandela, who died in 2005; Mandela’s first daughter Makaziwe Mandela, who died as an infant in 1948; and Mandela’s second son Madiba Thembekile, who died in a car accident in 1969.
“Mandla’s spokesman Freddy Pilusa told AFP on Monday that the grandson ‘has no issues with the repatriation of any of those remains.’
‘But obviously it has to be done by those people who have the authority to do so,’ he added.
‘Those things would have been decided in the family. But now they’re not in the family. They’re in the court.’
Pilusa said on Tuesday that he was unable to comment on the court ruling.” – aljazeera.com
