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President Jacob Zuma has filed a notice to oppose Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s reported application to have access to government documents relating to Nelson Mandela’s Qunu property.
“The state attorney filed a notice to oppose the action, pending instructions from the president,” presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj said yesterday.
Maharaj could not provide details of when the notice was filed, or any other information.
In October, Madikizela-Mandela’s attorney Mvuzo Notyesi told Sapa she filed papers in the Mthatha High Court challenging Mandela’s estate, seeking the rights to his Qunu home. Madikizela-Mandela was the former president’s second wife for 38 years.
It emerged she was left out of his will after he died in December last year.
Madikizela-Mandela claimed Mandela may have committed land fraud when he registered a plot of land in Qunu, Eastern Cape, in his own name.
She claims that abaThembu king Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo gave her the land when Mandela was imprisoned and that it was rightfully hers. She contends that the registration of the house under Madiba’s name was unlawful and should be set aside.
The Sunday Times earlier reported that Madikizela-Mandela’s lawyers want Zuma and the Department of Rural Development to produce information that would prove the claim that the Qunu property belonged to Mandela or to prove the validity of the property’s title deed — claims that she disputes. — Sapa
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derick.khumalo