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By Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni

Freelance journalist, copywriter


Tony Leon was just doing his job, says his spokesperson

Former police minister Mufamadi attempted to lay the blame for the reopening of police investigations into Winnie Mandela in 1995 at Leon's door.


Tony Leon was just doing his job, says former DA chief whip Douglas Gibson, speaking on Leon’s behalf.

He spoke to The Citizen on Monday in response to former police minister Sydney Mufamadi’s press briefing in which Mufamadi reiterated that it was Leon who had asked for the murder case against Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to be reopened. Mufamadi was, in turn, responding to a documentary suggesting he was behind a probe into Winnie Madikizela-Mandela that was aimed at discrediting her.

“The suggestion that Tony Leon was behind the investigation in some sort of sinister way is utter rubbish,” Gibson told The Citizen.

ALSO READ: Mufamadi names Tony Leon as man behind Winnie investigation request

“It had all been published at the time it was even debated in Parliament; it was all over the newspapers … I accompanied him to the office of the Attorney General to say that this needed to be investigated and there had been an under-prosecution of the whole matter.

“Then the investigators said that at the time they had not been able to uncover evidence, therefore they were not proceeding with the matter unless the body of (Lolo Sono) had been found.

“Winnie knew about the investigation and even wrote to him.”

Gibson said he was re-reading Tony Leon’s biography On the Contrary (2008) and preparing a full statement to be released later on Monday afternoon.

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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