SHAN MOHANGI, known to his party colleagues here as Narentuk Jumuna, was a parliamentary candidate with a secret. His past. And last weekend his notorious Dublin conviction for the killing of a young woman in 1963 came back to haunt him with a vengeance.
Now, not surprisingly, no longer a candidate in the forthcoming general election for the small Independent Democrats (ID), the 69-year-old Mohangi also faces the prospect of charges for fraud initiated by the party from which he concealed his past.
A report in the Saturday Star alleged that a certain Mr Jumuna, running for the ID for the provincial assembly in the KwaZulu-Natal province, was in fact Mr Mohangi, who strangled Hazel Mullen in Dublin 46 years ago.
Mr Mohangi had changed his name to Narentuk Jumuna following his deportation from Ireland after serving four years of a seven-year sentence for the gruesome manslaughter of his 16-year-old girlfriend and co-worker in the Green Tureen restaurant in Harcourt Street where he worked as a part-time chef.
Since his return home Mr Jumuna had become a respected businessman in Natal and had even served in apartheid times as a parliamentarian for the ruling National Party in the House of Delegates, the Asians-only chamber of the then Tricameral Parliament. He joined the IDs only a month ago.
ID secretary-general Haniff Hoosen told The Irish Timesthat on hearing the allegation he had confronted Mr Jumuna and asked him if he was the Mr Mohangi referred to. "When I confronted him he confessed to everything and said he was no longer standing for parliament and that he was resigning from the party. This is a very regretful situation for us, as we have strict rules when it comes to the type of people we want in our membership.
“We have around 1,000 candidates standing at various levels for the party around the country next month, but it is impossible to check all their backgrounds fully, as we have no legal right to seek a person’s criminal record without their permission,” he said.
The sensational 1964 court case that followed Hazel Mullen’s death had shocked Ireland. At the time Mohangi was a medical student at the Royal College of Surgeons. He strangled Ms Mullen in a jealous rage, then dismembered her body and tried to incinerate her remains in the oven of the Green Tureen.
The 22-year-old was interrupted by people living in the building who became suspicious of the smoke coming from the kitchen.
Having originally been sentenced to death for murder, his conviction was reduced to manslaughter and the sentence to seven years following an appeal.
The Mohangi scandal has proved to be hugely embarrassing for the ID, whose party leader Patricia De Lille is well known for her crime-fighting efforts.
The Cape Town woman was the first to highlight the irregularities in the arms deal that led to African National Congress leader and presidential favourite Jacob Zuma being charged with corruption and fraud.
Mr Hoosen thanked the media for unearthing Mr Mohangi’s deception, but added that he only managed to deceive the ID because it was forced to rely on members’ honesty when it came to divulging their history.
“We don’t even allow men who do not make maintenance payments to the mother of their children to join the party. But all we can ask them on the application form is whether they have a criminal record or not,” he said.
Under South Africa’s constitution Mr Mohangi is eligible to stand for election, as anyone sentenced to a year or more in prison can hold a seat in parliament five years after the sentence has been served.