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Mr Jantjie said he worked for a company called SA Interpreters, where he is a senior interpreter.

During the memorial, he was employed to stand on the stage next to key speakers such as US President Barack Obama and Mr Mandela's grandchildren, translating their eulogies.

His performance was watched on television by millions of people worldwide.

But he said that during the event, he lost concentration because of voices in his head.

"There was nothing I could do. I was alone in a very dangerous situation," Mr Jantjie told Johannesburg's Star newspaper.

"I tried to control myself and not show the world what was going on. I am very sorry. It's the situation I found myself in."

The South Africa's Translators' Institute said there had been complaints over Mr Jantjie's work before, but the ruling party took no action.
The government is investigating what happened

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There were complaints last year after Jantjie interpreted the proceedings at the ruling African National Congress elective conference, the institute's chairman, Johan Blaauw, told the South African Press Association.

Jantjie declined to provide details about his hire for the four-hour memorial, watched by millions around the world, as a government inquiry looks into the matter.

He said he had been drawn to the job of interpreting because he was disabled.

"I am suffering from schizophrenia, which is controllable. I am under treatment," Jantjie said.

At a news conference Thursday, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, South Africa's deputy minister of women, children and people with disabilities, admitted that mistakes had happened at the memorial service but added that Jantjie was not a "fake."

She said there was no sign language standard in South Africa and deaf people spoke different dialects.

She added that the government was looking into the vetting of Jantjie's security clearance at the memorial.

Bogopane-Zulu also said the government tracked down the company Jantjie worked for, but the owners "seemed to have vanished."

"We managed to get hold of them and then we spoke to them, wanting some answers, and they vanished into thin air," she said. "They have been providing substandard service for years."

Jantjie named his employer as a company called SA Interpreters. He did not give details about his training, saying his qualifications are filed with the company.

As outrage over his interpretation skills have grown, so have questions about who hired him.

The ANC said it did not hire Jantjie for the service, as it was the state that had organized the memorial.

"The processes that were followed to procure Mr. Jantjie's services were thus government processes and not ANC processes," the ruling party said in a prepared statement, adding that it had used his services before.

"It is important to make the point that, up until yesterday, the African National Congress had not been aware of any of complaints regarding the quality of services, qualifications or reported illnesses of Mr Jantjie."

Jantjie said he was proud to receive a call saying he would be interpreting at the memorial for the revered statesman. Asked who had called him to tell him he would be interpreting, he just said: "It is a lady that I am serving under."

He said the atmosphere on the day was "wonderful."

"It was a dream come true," he said, adding that he felt as if he had reached "the standard of the champion of the whole world."

At the service, at which world leaders from President Barack Obama to Cuba's Raul Castro spoke, he said he was doing South African sign language.

But the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa sees it differently. He said Jantjie had been dubbed a "fake interpreter."

"The deaf community is in outrage," said Bruno Druchen. "He is not known by the Deaf Community in South Africa nor by the South African Sign Language interpreters working in the field."

The man showed no facial expressions, which are key in South African sign language, and his hand signals were meaningless, Druchen said.

While dignitaries addressed the crowd at Johannesburg's FNB stadium, Jantjie produced a series of hand signals that experts said meant nothing.

"It was almost like he was doing baseball signs," deaf actress Marlee Matlin told CNN on Wednesday, through a sign language interpreter. "I was appalled."

Though each country has its own sign language, all of them entail facial expressions, she said. She called his lack of facial expression "a giveaway."

"I knew exactly right then and there that he wasn't authentic at all, and it was offensive; it was offensive to me." http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/world/africa/mandela-memorial-fake-intep
reter/index.html?hpt=hp_t1]

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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 and suffers from schizophrenia.

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.”

policemen around me.”

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.

“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 will see things that chase me,” Jantjie said.

“I was in a very difficult position,” he added. “And remember those people, 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.” http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/12/12/deaf_interpreter_at_mande
la_memorial_saw_angels_has_been_violent.html

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