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On Friday, Room A at the Bellville Magistrates’ Court in Cape Town’s northern suburbs became the unlikely setting of an unfolding drama starring the renowned US hip-hop artist and actor formerly known as Mos Def.
In the stiflingly hot courtroom, the 42-year-old star, who has changed his name to Yasiin Bey, rolled his eyes at wife Maieve and mother Sheron, who were seated on a wooden pew behind him.
Bey had spent the previous night in custody after his arrest on Thursday at a sea-facing flat, where he had been living with his family, including four children.
The courtroom drama co-starred dapper immigration official Adrian Jackson, who was determined to keep Bey in jail and then deport him on three charges of contravening the Immigration Act. A flushed Jeffrey Allen, of the US Consulate in Cape Town, was trying to explain that the matter was a “big misunderstanding” and that they would help him to leave.
Bey was eventually released on R5 000 bail with strict conditions, including that he report to the police twice a day.
The actor, who has lived in Cape Town since 2013, hails from New York and is famous for roles in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Italian Job and Brown Sugar.
In a theatrical display of frustration in court, he clutched his head and exclaimed: “Oh my Gawwwd!”
Maieve tried to calm him, whispering, “shhhht, shhhhhht”, fanning herself with nervous hands.
A source who saw Bey being arrested and who asked not to be named, said he screamed at police officers when they cuffed him and loaded him into the back of a police van on Thursday.
“He was very rude to the police, saying ‘I’m a celebrity, you can’t arrest me. Do you know who I am?’ That kind of thing. His wife was there too, making a scene; she went crazy.”
An insider in the investigation told City Press that the police first looked for Bey at Cape Town’s up-market Pepperclub Hotel, where he used to live with his family in the penthouse.
“At the police station, about six or eight officers were processing his arrest. They were talking among themselves, saying things like ‘we know this guy, man’. But rules are rules,” said the witness.
In court, Bey’s wife sat next to the immaculately dressed Lindo and Zondwa Mandela.
Next to them, two women were trying to scrape together R300 to secure the release of a man who appeared ahead of Bey for possession of dagga.
It was Mandela who made hasty phone calls on Friday to recruit top local immigration lawyer Craig Smith in a desperate bid to get Bey out of jail.
Smith argued in court that the US Consulate in Cape Town had clipped and “retained” Bey’s US passport earlier this month, after Bey told them he wanted to renounce his US citizenship.
Smith added that the US Consulate now realised it had made a mistake, and was willing to help Bey leave the country. He also said Bey had a so-called world passport, which his client considered to be a perfectly legal travel document.
This is the document that sparked the whole diplomatic furore, following an altercation between Bey and immigration officials at Cape Town International Airport last Saturday, when Bey tried to board a flight to Ethiopia.
The department of home affairs said Bey had “entered the country using a US passport on a tourist visa”, and he tried to leave on January 9 by “producing an unrecognised ‘world passport’, which was declined by immigration officials”.
Home affairs has ordered Bey’s family to leave the country within 14 days, while Bey must remain for his next court appearance on March 8.
Should something like a world passport be taken more seriously?
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