Fight over Mandela’s jail key and other mementoes go to court

The South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra), together with the Robben Island Museum and the department of sports, arts and culture, this week filed an urgent application for an order that about 30 objects and artefacts – which also include a variety of artworks, signed books and clothing items that belonged to Mandela – be returned to home soil.

They were allegedly illegally exported ahead of a since cancelled auction by New York-based Guernsey’s to raise funds for a memorial garden in Qunu.

News of the auction, originally scheduled for January, sparked an uproar and it was ultimately called off, following engagements between Sahra and Guernsey’s. But Sahra chief executive officer Lungisa Malgas said in the papers filed this week that about 30 items had still not been returned to the country.

Malgas in the papers, filed in the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday, argued these items had been “illegally or unlawfully” exported without “a legal permit”.

This, she said, was in contravention of the National Heritage Resources Act, which required a permit from Sahra in order to export heritage objects. And she said once they were returned, they would have to be handed over to the Hawks as they now formed part of a criminal investigation.

ALSO READ: PICS: Inside the R14k-a-night Mandela hotel

“Any heritage artefacts associated with [Nelson Mandela] are of historical importance and priceless and must be afforded the highest level of protection.”

She stressed that the permitting process had “no impact on the ownership of a heritage object”.

“The permitting process, therefore, represents a gateway through which the significance of heritage objects is assessed prior to their export.

This ensures that any object which is deemed so significant that its loss to the country would constitute a loss to the national estate of South Africa, is retained in South Africa,” she said.

When it came to the urgency of the matter, Malgas argued were the items not returned speedily, “there is a likelihood that another auction may be arranged or the heritage objects may be lost”.

In addition to ordering the re turn of the items, the applicants in the case have asked the court to order the South African consulate-general in New York to facilitate this.

They’ve also asked the court to interdict the sale or movement from one place to another of the items in the meantime. In addition to Guernsey’s, the papers also list as a respondent United States curator David Parr, whose travelling exhibition Sahra says is in possession of “various objects”.

They further listed Mandela’s jailer-turned friend, Christo Brand, who donated the key to the prison cell to the auction – but then requested it be withdrawn – and the former president’s daughter, Dr Makaziwe Mandela-Amuah.

In January, the Sunday Times reported a criminal case of theft had been opened against Mandela-Amuah by other family members after certain items were allegedly removed by her from her late father’s Houghton home last year.

Police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Mavela Masondo was quoted at the time saying a case was opened at the Norwood police station and that the docket had been sent to court for a decision.

Mandela-Amuah said: “I’d like you not to call this number and lose my number” and hung up the phone when she was contacted for comment yesterday.