By
Alan Clendenning and Juergen Baetz
JOHANNESBURG
(AP) — The man accused of faking sign interpretation while standing alongside
world leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama at Nelson Mandela's memorial
service said Thursday he hallucinated that angels were entering the stadium,
suffers from schizophrenia and has been violent in the past.
Thamsanqa
Jantjie said in a 45-minute interview with The Associated Press that his
hallucinations began while he was interpreting and that he tried not to panic
because there were "armed policemen around me." He added that he was
once hospitalized in a mental health facility for more than one year.
A
South African deputy Cabinet minister, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, later held a
news conference to announce that "a mistake happened" in the hiring
of Jantjie.
Government
officials have tried to track down the company that provided Thamsanqa Jantjie
but the owners "have vanished into thin air," said Deputy Minister of
Women, Children and People with Disabilities Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu.
She
apologized to deaf people offended around the world for Jantjie's
incomprehensible signing, and said an investigation is under way to determine
how Jantjie was hired and what vetting process, if any, he underwent for his
security clearance.
The
deputy minister said the translation company offered sub-standard services, the
rate they paid the translator was far below the normal levels and that in order
to maintain the interpreter's concentration level, interpreters must be
switched every 20 minutes. Jantjie was on the stage for the entire service that
lasted more than three hours.
She
declined to say who in South Africa's government was responsible for
contracting the company that provided the translator, or how those rules could
be flouted.
"It's
an interdepartmental responsibility," she said. "We are trying to
establish what happened."
Jantjie,
who stood gesticulating three-feet (1 meter) from Obama and others who spoke at
Tuesday's ceremony that was broadcast around the world, insisted in the AP
interview that he was doing proper sign-language interpretation of the speeches
of world leaders.
But he also apologized for his performance that has been dismissed by many
sign-language experts as gibberish.
"I
would like to tell everybody that if I've offended anyone, please, forgive
me," Jantjie said. "But what I was doing, I was doing what I believe
is my calling, I was doing what I believe makes a difference."
The
statements by Jantjie raise serious security issues for Obama, other heads of
state and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who made speeches at FNB Stadium
in Soweto, Johannesburg's black township. The ceremony honored Mandela, the
anti-apartheid icon and former president who died on Dec. 5. Many of them,
including Obama, stood one yard (meter) away from Jantjie.
"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 on that place. Sometimes I will
see things that chase me," Jantjie 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
how often he had become violent, he said "a lot" while declining to
provide details.
Jantjie
said he was due on the day of the ceremony to get a regular six-month mental
health checkup to determine whether the medication he takes was working,
whether it needed to be changed or whether he needed to be kept at a mental
health facility for treatment.
He
said he did not tell the company that contracted him for the event for about
$85 that he was due for the checkup, but said the owner of SA Interpreters in
Johannesburg was aware of his condition.
AP
journalists who visited the address of the company that Jantjie provided found
a different company there, whose managers said they knew nothing about SA
Interpreters. A woman answered the phone at a number that Jantjie provided and
said it was not for the company, and another phone number went to a voicemail
that did not identify the person or company with the number.
Jantjie
said he received one year of sign language interpretation at a school in Cape
Town. He said he has previously interpreted at many events without anyone
complaining.
The
AP showed Jantjie video footage of him interpreting on stage at the Mandela
memorial service.
"I
don't remember any of this at all," he said.
__
Associated
Press writer Ray Faure in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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