The image of the nattily dressed "Gucci socialist" is almost impossible to reconcile with that of the underground freedom fighter.

Born in Cape Town in 1954, Tony Yengeni grew up in the poor townships of Guguletu and Nyanga.

When the 1976 uprising erupted he was a matric student, and the following year left the country for Lesotho, undergoing military training in ANC camps in Botswana, Zambia and Angola. A social science degree in Moscow followed.

In 1986, Yengeni and wife Lumka Nyamza returned to Cape Town where he became the Western Cape commander of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe. But Yengeni was almost immediately arrested, spending four years in prison awaiting trial for terrorism. That trial, which he stood with 13 others, brought him to national and international prominence.

Yengeni was never successfully prosecuted and was finally granted indemnity in 1991. The following year he became the ANC's Western Cape provincial secretary, assuming the vital job of co-coordinator of the party's 1994 election campaign.

His star rising rapidly, Yengeni became the ANC's first parliamentary chief whip. Later, he was appointed chairman of Parliament's joint standing committee on defence, at a time that the government was spending billions on arms.

Then, in 2001, this newspaper first reported the Mercedes-Benz discount he had received.

He called the exposé "hogwash". Tragically for Yengeni, Magistrate Bill Moyses begged to differ.

With acknowledgement to the Sunday Times.