The struggle is not over yet

South Africa's self-styled mother of the nation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, was plunged into a fresh legal battle today, as her trial for fraud and theft resumed following months of delays.

The former wife of Nelson Mandela faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted by the Pretoria regional court on all 85 charges. It is her most serious brush with the law since a 1991 conviction for being an accessory to kidnapping.

Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, 68, the head of the ruling African National Congress's women's league, and a broker, Addy Moolman, are accused of using her signature to fraudulently obtain bank loans worth ?80,000.

A witness today told the court that she had been made to sign a blank loan application that was later fraudulently completed. Maditaba Adelinah Raphahla, a nurse from Soweto, said that she had agreed to Mr Moolman's request because she needed the money to pay her son's school fees.

It is alleged that the form was falsely completed to state that Ms Raphahla was a clerk for the women's league, and that headed notepaper had been used to apply for loans on behalf of 60 bogus league employees, including Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zinzi.

The theft charges relate to allegations that genuine employees who applied for bank loans had ?30 deducted from them for a funeral policy which did not exist.

Both the accused have denied all the charges and, in an interview with a South African radio station last month, Mrs Madikizela-Mandela branded the trial "a joke".

"It was the worst insult inflicted on me," she said. "But, of course, the people cannot be fooled. I was made for the revolution. The struggle is not over yet."

The trial, which began last year but has been repeatedly delayed by legal wrangling and accidents (one defendant broke a foot, the other was involved in a car crash), is due to last for two weeks.

One prosecutor, Jan Ferreira, told Reuters that the defendants could be imprisoned for up to 15 years if found guilty. The case is the latest in a string of controversies to buffet the former social worker, whose spirit and beauty captivated Mr Mandela in 1958.

Persecuted and isolated by the apartheid regime during her husband's 27-year imprisonment, Mrs Madikizela-Mandela emerged a populist radical beloved in the townships.

Cited last year for debts in several court cases, she was fined by parliament, where critics say she is seldom seen, over undeclared gifts and earnings. In response, she is suing parliament.

Those same critics hailed her recent proposal to visit Baghdad as a human shield, with some offering to buy her a one-way air ticket.

The current ANC leadership cares little for their retired leader's ex-wife, and President Thabo Mbeki even knocked her hat off in front of television cameras when she tried to kiss him on the cheek at a rally.

She has been described by some as a damaged icon at large, but Mrs Madikizela-Mandela has been canny in shoring up support, attending the court hearings of beleaguered supporters and sympathising with the black urban poor, who feel marginalised in post-apartheid South Africa.

She recieved the sixth-highest number of votes in the election for the ANC's 60-member executive committee at the party's conference last December.

The damaging revelations of the 1991 trial, when Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to six years for being an accessory to the kidnapping of Soweto child activist Stompie Seipei, are overlooked by her supporters. The sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.

Stompie was found with his throat cut near Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house, but she was acquitted of his murder. A long-running battle with a South African bank, which threatened to auction the house unless a mortgage loan was repaid, was resolved at the weekend, allowing the women's league president to remain in the "Beverly Hills" of Soweto.