JOHANNESBURG (AP) The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial says he suffers from s
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Fake signer at Mandela event says he hallucinated
JOHANNESBURG (AP) The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial says he suffers
from schizophrenia and hallucinated and saw angels while gesturing incoherently just 3 feet away
from President Barack Obama and other world leaders, outraging deaf people worldwide who said
his signs amounted to gibberish.
South African officials scrambled Thursday to explain how they came to hire the man and said they
were investigating what vetting process, if any, he underwent for his security clearance.
"In the process, and in the speed of the event, a mistake happened," deputy Cabinet minister
Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu said.
She apologized to deaf people around the world who were offended by the incomprehensible
signing.
However, she declined to say whether a government department, the presidency or the ruling
African National Congress party was responsible for hiring the sign interpreter, telling reporters it
isn't the time to "point fingers and vilify each other and start shouting."
The man at the center of the controversy said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday
that he began hallucinating while onstage in the stadium filled with tens of thousands of people and
that he tried not to panic because there were "armed policemen around me."
Thamsanqa Jantjie added that he has schizophrenia, was once hospitalized in a mental health facility
for 19 months and has been violent in the past.
The disclosures raised serious security concerns for Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and other dignitaries who stood next to Jantjie as they eulogized Mandela at FNB Stadium in
Soweto, the black township at the center of the struggle against racist white rule. Mandela died on
Dec. 5 at 95.
In Washington, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said vetting for criminal history and other
appropriate background checks of the people onstage were the responsibility of the South Africans.
He added that Secret Service agents are "always in close proximity to the president."
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on how South Africa handled the
hiring of the translator.
However, he added: "If in fact the individual was not signing, that's unfortunate because that meant
that people who rely on sign language to follow the speeches were not able to."
Jantjie has been seen on video performing sign language interpretation at other prominent events in
South Africa criticized as fake by advocates for the deaf, including at an appearance last December
with South African President Jacob Zuma.
The government left many questions about the bizarre episode unanswered, including how much
money the translation company was paid and Jantjie's precise role in the company and even whether
it really exists.
AP journalists who visited the address Jantjie provided for SA Interpreters found a different
company, whose managers said they knew nothing about the translation firm. A woman who
answered the phone at a number Jantjie provided said she worked for the company that hired him
but declined comment and hung up.
The government said it tried to track down the company but the owners "have vanished into thin
air," according to Bogopane-Zulu, the deputy minister of Women, Children and People with
Disabilities.
She said the translation company offered sub-standard services and the rate they purportedly paid
the translator, $77 a day, is far below the usual rate of up to $164 an hour.
Ordinarily, sign language interpreters in South Africa are switched every 20 minutes to maintain
their concentration levels, she said. Jantjie was onstage for the entire service, which lasted more
than four hours.
Jantjie, meanwhile, insisted he did proper sign language interpretation of the world leaders'
speeches. But he also apologized for a performance dismissed by many experts as gibberish.
"I would like to tell everybody that if I've offended anyone, please, forgive me," Jantjie told the AP at
his tidy home on the outskirts of Soweto that was outfitted with a big-screen TV in the living room
and two late-model cars in the carport.
"What happened that day, I see angels come to the stadium ... I start realizing that the problem is
here. And the problem, I don't know the attack of this problem, how will it comes. Sometimes I react
violent. ... Sometimes I will see things that chase me," he said.
"I was in a very difficult position," he added. "And remember those people, the president and
everyone, they were armed, there was armed police around me. If I start panicking I'll start being a
problem. I have to deal with this in a manner so that I mustn't embarrass my country."
Asked if he had ever been violent, he responded: "Yes, a lot."
He declined to provide details, but responded to another question about his past violence by
suggesting his illness was behind it. "I'm suffering from a very difficult illness. The illness that you
are not in position of understanding yourself at times."
Jantjie said that on the day of the memorial service he was due for a regular six-month mental health
checkup to determine whether the medication he takes was working or needs to be changed, or
whether he should enter a mental health facility for treatment.
He did not tell SA Interpreters that he was due for the checkup, but said an owner of the company
was aware of his condition.
Police went to his home later Thursday to check on his well-being and determined that he was not a
danger to himself or others, police spokesman Brigadier Neville Malila said.
A medical expert with University College London said Jantjie's unusual sign language didn't look like
it was caused by schizophrenia or another psychosis.
"The disruption of sign language in people with schizophrenia takes many forms, but this does not
look like anything I have seen in signers with psychosis," said Jo Atkinson, a clinical psychologist and
researcher at the Center for Deafness, Cognition and Language.
Jantjie said he is officially classified as disabled by the government because of his schizophrenia. He
said he has been on medication for nine years, and had taken it the day of the memorial service.
Jantjie said he received one year of sign language interpretation training, though advocates for the
deaf say qualified interpreters in South Africa must undergo five years of training.
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Associated Press reporters Ray Faure and Nastasya Tay in Johannesburg and Nedra Pickler in
Washington contributed to this report.
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