‘Brenda Fassie’s cocaine was laced with rat poison’

CAPE TOWN – An inquest has been launched into the death of singer Brenda Fassie after evidence that the crack cocaine she used was laced with rat poison, the Sunday Times reported.

Preliminary post mortem results show the singer died of a drug overdose, but Peter Snyman, Fassie’s manager, said he had evidence of the drugs having been tampered with. Snyman and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a friend of Fassie, are to ask the police to question a young woman who visited her at her home in Sandton on April 25.That was the last occasion Fassie used crack cocaine.The next morning Fassie had an asthma attack and was rushed to the Sunninghill Clinic in Johannesburg.She lapsed into a coma from which she never recovered, and died on May 9 after her life support machines were turned off.A drug dealer visited Fassie – who was in drug rehabilitation clinics 30 times – while she was in hospital, the newspaper said.Snyman said a young man, now in a coma in a Johannesburg hospital, had also bought drugs from the dealer who supplied Fassie.Drug dealers are known to add harmful substances to their merchandise to increase their bulk, and the dealers’ profit.Professor Hendrik Scholtz, the pathologist who conducted the post mortem on Fassie, said his final results would be forwarded to the inquest magistrate within two weeks, the Sunday Times reported.Meanwhile, more than 10 000 people descended on Cape Town’s Langa township on Saturday to bid farewell to Fassie, one of the nation’s most popular and controversial musicians.President Thabo Mbeki told the crowd South Africa needed to save its people, especially musicians, from the scourge of drugs that had plagued Fassie’s life.”We have to fight this problem of drugs, because we had wanted Brenda to live until she was 80,” he told mourners.- Nampa-Sapa-ReutersSnyman and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a friend of Fassie, are to ask the police to question a young woman who visited her at her home in Sandton on April 25.That was the last occasion Fassie used crack cocaine.The next morning Fassie had an asthma attack and was rushed to the Sunninghill Clinic in Johannesburg.She lapsed into a coma from which she never recovered, and died on May 9 after her life support machines were turned off.A drug dealer visited Fassie – who was in drug rehabilitation clinics 30 times – while she was in hospital, the newspaper said.Snyman said a young man, now in a coma in a Johannesburg hospital, had also bought drugs from the dealer who supplied Fassie.Drug dealers are known to add harmful substances to their merchandise to increase their bulk, and the dealers’ profit.Professor Hendrik Scholtz, the pathologist who conducted the post mortem on Fassie, said his final results would be forwarded to the inquest magistrate within two weeks, the Sunday Times reported.Meanwhile, more than 10 000 people descended on Cape Town’s Langa township on Saturday to bid farewell to Fassie, one of the nation’s most popular and controversial musicians.President Thabo Mbeki told the crowd South Africa needed to save its people, especially musicians, from the scourge of drugs that had plagued Fassie’s life.”We have to fight this problem of drugs, because we had wanted Brenda to live until she was 80,” he told mourners.- Nampa-Sapa-Reuters