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." He added that he was once hospitalized in a mental health facility for more than one year.
Jantjie, who stood gesticulating three-feet from Obama and others who spoke at Tuesday's ceremony that was broadcast around the world, insisted that he was doing proper sign-language interpretation of the speeches of world leaders.
The statements by Jantjie raise serious security issues for Obama, other heads of state and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who made speeches at FNB Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg's black township.
The ceremony honored Mandela, the anti-apartheid icon and former president who died on Dec 5.
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"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 come. Sometimes I get violent on that place. Sometimes I will see things chasing me," Jantjie said.
Asked how often he had become violent, he said "a lot" while declining to provide details.
Contacted by telephone today by AP, SA Interpreters, the organization that reportedly hired Jantjie to do the sign language interpreting at the memorial, declined to comment.