A prison cell beckons for Winnie Mandela

In her prime, she was royalty among black South Africans. Now Winnie Madikizela-Mandela faces a real possibility of going to jail.

While her former husband Nelson was being honoured at an international Aids conference in Barcelona last week, Ms Madikizela-Mandela, 65, was in Pretoria's regional court, facing 85 charges of fraud and theft of 1m rand (£65,000). Despite this, her manner was as regal as if she was still South Africa's first lady.

Arriving each day in a luxury Mercedes, the flamboyantly-costumed Ms Madikizela-Mandela, followed by her bodyguards, upset court officials by taking parking spaces reserved for magistrates and prosecutors. Her security men also strutted into the courtroom with their firearms, in defiance of court regulations.

One bodyguard entered the court with four handguns. When confronted by officials he handed over only two, forcing the magistrate to adjourn the case until he gave up all his weapons. In the dock, meanwhile, Ms Madikizela-Mandela laughed at witnesses giving evidence against her.

She and her co-accused Addy Moolman are charged with a scam in which her signature was used to obtain loans for fictitious people claimed to be members of the ruling ANC's women's league, which she heads. The loan scheme had been set up with a bank for league employees who had completed a year's service.

Ms Madikizela-Mandela has denied signing the letters used to obtain the loans, but a handwriting expert testified that 44 signatures on 66 letters were hers. She has been accused of using the money to support a lifestyle that would have been impossible on her pay as a MP; if convicted, she could be jailed for 15 years.

During the 27 years her former husband was imprisoned by the apartheid regime, Winnie was revered in South Africa's impoverished townships, and she remains a heroine to many. But in the giant sprawl of Soweto, adjoining Johannesburg, her controversial group of bodyguards, calling themselves the Mandela United Football Club, carried out a reign of terror against her opponents.

In 1989 Mandela United kidnapped four young activists and subsequently killed one of them, Stompie Seipei. Ms Madikizela-Mandela was convicted in 1991 of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault, and was sentenced to six years in jail, but on appeal a fine was imposed instead. That conviction, however, could prevent her escaping jail if she is found guilty this time.

In 1992, two years before he became president in South Africa's first free election, Mr Mandela announced that he and his wife were separating. They divorced a few years later. Although Ms Madikizela-Mandela was appointed a deputy minister in his first cabinet, she was fired within months for "insubordination". She retains a significant grass-roots following in the ANC, but is shunned by the leadership – Mr Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki, has criticised her for "self-promotion" – and she is in trouble with Parliament after failing to attend an ethics committee hearing to explain donations which she did not disclose in line with parliamentary procedures.

The Johannesburg High Court reserved judgment last month in another case in which she owed a bank about £6,500 for petrol and credit-card purchases. The bank confiscated her car and card.

The woman once known as the "Mother of the Nation" has long since fallen from grace, but it remains to be seen whether the judicial system can stomach sending her to jail.

Her trial is due to resume tomorrow.