Angry Black Women Attack Mandela Outside Courthouse

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Winnie Mandela, the wife of jailed African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, was attacked today by an angry crowd outside the Cape Town Supreme Court, witnesses said.

Mandela was attending a mitigation hearing for Lindi Mangaliso, a friend convicted of hiring two killers to murder her husband two years ago in the Cape area black township of Guguletu.

Witnesses said Mandela’s friendship with Mangaliso, unpopular in the township after the murder conviction, touched off the attack.

According to news photographer Willy De Klerk, a crowd of 200 mostly black women hurled empty soda cans and debris from the street at Mandela, who had slipped out a back door of the courthouse. Later she was evacuated in a car.