JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2: On the sixth day of hearings into activities of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's former bodyguards South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission yesterday heard more confusing testimony by witnesses contradicting earlier statements. Last week's testimony implicating President Nelson Mandela's ex-wife in the murder of teenage activist Stompie Seipei Moeketsi and the murder of a Soweto doctor were weakened. It looked increasingly unlikely that Winnie Mandela will be the subject of further investigations or have to fear prosecution connected with events dating back to the late 1980s.

One of two convicted killers of Soweto doctor Abu Baker Asvat told the commission under oath that Winnie Mandela had provided the gun for the 1989 murder of Dr Asvat at his surgery and that they acted on her instructions.

But Cyril Mbatha's credibility was called in question when the commission heard that previously he had already presented three different versions of events, although he insisted that yesterday's version was finally the truth.Mbatha and Thulani Dlamini, who will also testify this week, were convicted of murdering Asvat.

Albertina Sisulu, a consultant assistant to Asvat, yesterday retracted details she had given in a BBC interview that had implicated Winnie Mandela in the doctor's death.

Testimony by two policemen, who had been investigating a number of cases in which members of the Mandela United Football Club - as Winnie's notorious bodyguards were dubbed - were implicated, left the commissioners with more questions than answers.

Stompie was one of four youths who had been abducted from a methodist priest's Soweto house on Winnie's orders to protect them from alleged sexual abuse.

One of Winnie's main accusers, Katiza Cebekhulu, has claimed in recently published book that Madikizela-Mandela had an interest in Asvat's death because he could implicate her in Stompie's death.

Cebekhulu, who told the commission last week he had seen Winnie stab Stompie, also said that on December 30, 1988, he went with the president's former wife to find Asvat.

But Albertina Sisulu told the commission yesterday that she had never seen Cebekhulu at the practice and, on the day in question, had not seen Winnie there either.

The statement is important because Winnie Mandela has always claimed she was not in Johannesburg on December 30 when the four youths were assaulted in her house.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.