DHAKA: Just when it seemed the scandal over the bogus sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial had run its course, a cousin and three friends say he was part of a mob that accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks.

Thamsanqa Jantjie never went to trial for the 2003 killings when other suspects did because authorities determined he was not mentally fit to stand trial, the four told media on Monday.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the fake signing fiasco, which has deeply embarrassed South Africa’s government and prompted a high-level investigation into how it happened.

Their account of the killings matched a description of the crime and the outcome for Jantjie that he himself described in an interview published by the Sunday Times newspaper of Johannesburg.

‘It was a community thing, what you call mob justice, and I was also there,’ Jantjie told the newspaper, reports gulfnews.com.

BDST: 1838 HRS, DEC 18, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor