JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Mzwakhe Mbuli, a musician and writer known as the People's Poet of South Africa, was convicted of bank robbery Monday.
The magistrate and his two assessors, who help him evaluate the evidence, unanimously rejected Mbuli's claim that he had been framed and concluded that he and two other men had used pistols and a Russian hand grenade to rob a bank of $2,600 in a Pretoria suburb on Oct. 28, 1997. Mbuli's lawyer said he expected a long prison term.Mbuli, 39, became famous in the 1980s by declaiming his protest poetry at the funerals of anti-apartheid activists killed by the police. With his deep voice booming his grim lyrics over cheerful township-jive Zulu guitar plucking, he became one of South Africa's top recording artists, a regular at televised ceremonies and the chief praise-singer at Nelson Mandela's 1994 inauguration.
Since his arrest in October 1997, Mbuli has been held without bail, mostly in Pretoria's maximum security prison. He sat stone-faced Monday during the 4 1/2-hour reading of the magistrate's decision. His wife broke down crying, as did many of his supporters.
Afterward, Mbuli said to a radio reporter: "I am still very much innocent. In the environment of lies, the truth becomes a stranger."