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A South African sign language interpreter accused of making up his own signs during a memorial to Nelson Mandela has faced charges for murder, rape and kidnapping, it was claimed yesterday. Thamsanqa Jantjie, 34, stood just a few metres from President Obama and others who spoke at Tuesday’s ceremony that was broadcast around the world.
South African news website eNCA reported yesterday that Jantjie, who has schizophrenia, has faced charges for rape (1994), theft (1995), housebreaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), murder, attempted murder and kidnapping (2003) charges.
The website stated it is unclear if the 2003 murder case was ever concluded as the court file was found to be empty during their investigations.
It also reported that many of the charges brought against him were dropped, allegedly because he was mentally unfit to stand trial.
Jantjie was acquitted on the rape charge, but he was convicted of theft for which he was sentenced to three years in prison — the channel could not ascertain if he served the jail time. Yesterday he revealed he may have suffered a schizophrenic episode on stage after claiming he saw “angels” at the event.
He said that his hallucinations began while he was interpreting and that he tried not to panic because there were “armed policemen around me.”
When Jantjie was shown video footage of him interpreting on stage at the Mandela memorial service he said “I don’t remember any of this at all.”
He added that he was once hospitalised in a mental health facility for more than one year.
He said he worked for a company called SA Interpreters which had been hired by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for Tuesday’s ceremony at Johannesburg’s 95,000-seat Soccer City stadium.
He said he was paid $85 for interpreting the event.
But he also apologised for his performance that has been dismissed by many sign-language experts as gibberish. “I would like to tell everybody that if I’ve offended anyone, please, forgive me,” Jantjie said in his concrete home in a low-income Johannesburg neighbourhood
Jantjie said he was due on the day of the ceremony to get a regular six-month mental health checkup to determine whether the medication he takes was working, whether it needed to be changed or whether he needed to be kept at a mental health facility for treatment.
He said he did not tell the company that contracted him for the event for about $85 that he was due for the checkup, but said the owner of SA Interpreters in Johannesburg was aware of his condition.
Jantjie said he received one year of sign language interpretation at a school in Cape Town, and insisted that he has previously interpreted at many events without anyone complaining. — DailyMail.
Online Reporter