SOUTH AFRICA: Winnie Mandela asks Anold Schwarznegger to halt execution of deathrow prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams

Record ID: 169753

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: Winnie Mandela asks Anold Schwarznegger to halt execution of deathrow prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams
  • Date: 7th December 2005
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) WINNIE MANDELA, SAYING: " It is extremely sad but I am very touched and moved by the very fact that he wants his ashes scattered in Africa...particularly in South Africa."
  • Embargoed: 22nd December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA1PKS0W1WNDVG6U5YO6BCNH9L8
  • Story Text: South Africa's Winnie Madikizela-Mandela appealed to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday (December 6) to halt the execution of Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams.
    "If we forgave what was done to us in South Africa, isn't it possible to forgive," she told a news conference in Johannesburg. The conference was linked by telephone to media in the US who also asked Winnie questions. The anti-apartheid campaigner and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela said she had requested a meeting with Schwarzenegger, but was disappointed he declined to see her.
    The Republican governor will hold a clemency review on Thursday (December 6) on Williams, convicted of four brutal killings a quarter century ago.
    Williams has generated a big public campaign calling for clemency because of his anti-gang books aimed at inner-city youth.
    Schwarzenegger -- who sits on the board of the Nelson Mandela's charitable foundation -- turned down a meeting with Madikizela-Mandela because it conflicted with the law, she said.
    "I regret it very much, that a man who has been to South Africa, who has wined and dined with comrade Mandela in his home... would react in this manner, waving before me the policies of his country," she said. "I would have thought that at least he would have a tinge of a conscience."
    Madikizela-Mandela said he had also wanted to meet with victims of Williams, who is scheduled to die on December 13 by lethal injection at San Quentin prison north of San Francisco.
    If Williams is executed, she would follow through on his request that he be buried or have his ashes scattered in South Africa.
    "I would be honoured to carry out his wishes," she said. Williams' case is one of several that have drawn attention to U.S. use of the death penalty, as the execution toll passed a milestone on Friday of 1,000 since the U.S. Supreme Court
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