Antiapartheid figure guilty of fraud

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela, was convicted of dozens of charges of theft and fraud Thursday.

Madikizela-Mandela, 66, considered one of the most powerful figures of this country's fight against apartheid, could be sentenced to as many as 15 years in jail for the guilty findings on 43 counts of fraud and 25 counts of theft. A business associate, Addy Moolman, was found guilty of 58 charges of fraud and 25 of theft.

A regional court in Pretoria found that she had used her position as the president of the African National Congress Women's League to secure fraudulent loans and funeral policies for poor women, and then pilfered more than $100,000 from those accounts.

MILOSEVIC CHARGED: Serbian officials said the police charged former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and eight others in the death of Ivan Stambolic, a former Serbian president, who disappeared in 2000.

The body of Stambolic was found during the crackdown after last month's assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Media reports in Belgrade quoted the police as saying that Milosevic, now on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, gave orders for the "permanent removal" of Stambolic, while the actual killing was done by others.

INDONESIA BUYS WARPLANES: Indonesia plans to buy dozens of high-performance fighter bombers from Russia over the next several years, according to the state Antara news agency.

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