Sign language interpreter at Mandela's funeral has faced murder charge

Thamsanqa Jantjie, the ‘fake’ sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial on Tuesday, has faced a number of criminal charges in court, including a murder charge in 2003, according to South Africa TV channel eNCA. “eNCA’s investigations have found that Thamsanqa Jantjie, who is being treated for schizophrenia, has also faced rape (1994), theft (1995), housebreaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), murder, attempted murder and kidnapping (2003) charges,” the channel reported. [caption id=“attachment_1286233” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Thamsanqa Jantjie. AP[/caption] According to the eNCA story, most of the charges were dropped because Jantijie was apparently mentally unfit to stand trial. However, he was convicted of theft and given a three-year sentence but it was not certain whether he had served time for the crime or not. Jantjie was seen on stage making hand gestures next to Barack Obama during the US President’s speech. It emerged later that those gestures were not in fact sign language and Jantije was merely waving his hands about. At that point his name and his whereabouts where unknown but he subsequently came forward to identify himself claim he suffered from schizophrenia and that he had an attack while on stage and began hallucinating and hearing voices in his head. “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “I was alone in a very dangerous situation. I tried to control myself and not show the world what was going on. I am very sorry, it’s the situation I found myself in.” eNCA claims that the court records it scrutinised shows that the murder and kidnapping case against Jantjie and several others was referred to the South Gauteng High Court in 2004 but the court file for the case is empty. It is unclear how Jantjie’s background was not checked before he was appointed to translate speeches into sign language at Mandela’s memorial. Read the full eNCA report here.