he seems to be gesturing with authority
signing to keep pace with the speaker
"side by side, dreaming the same dream"
" Reporter: but this sign language
interpreter at Nelson Mandela's
memorial service was a fake, according to
the deaf federation of south Africa
They claim he's had no formal training
the signs he's making are notTused in south Africa
signs language, and he never used
facial expressions, a key part of signing
The federations says that there are established signs
for famous people in south America
-Reporter "Formal president, Thabo Mbeki..."
But one expert says the signed name
for Mbeki never appeared
The deaf community in south Africa is outraged
"Because he's a fake interpreter and he is
just been signing arbitrary signs"
A deaf member of south Africa's parliament
tweeted during the ceremony:
"He's just making up, get him out of TV sight"
That lawmaker is an alum of
this place, Gallaudet University in
Washington, the world's only liberate arts
college for the hard of hearing
Melanie Metzger says she doesn't know
south Africa sign language, but there are
universal indications of something wrong here.
"you see the repetitive movements here and here,
There's a repeated gesture, but the speaker
is not repeating the spoken message
so you can see just by that the
interpretation is not accurately equivalent
Reporter: " if this man was a fake,
was he a security risk?
He stood inches from president Obama
and other world leaders.
The white house seemed uncomfortable talking about it
"I would refer to the south African government
about who that person was and what their responsibilities were
Reporter: "Who is he? It's a mistery
The south African government won't comment
saying it's investigating
Former secret service agent, Larry Johnson says the host
organization provides names of everyone
in the inner parameter to the secret service
48 hours in advance so, names, backgrounds
can be checked but
"Being bad at your job is not a concern of the secret service,
The concerns are, is he someone that shouldn't be there because
he has bad intentions. he is known the law enforcement,he is a security risk.
Johnson says iy looks to him like those red flags did not
show up in the background. So did the secret service vet him?
The agency tells us that agreed-upon security measures
between the secret service and south african security officials
were in place during the ceremony
The secret service says that the host organizing the commitee was
responsible for the selection of the interpreters
Wolf, as we told you, the south African government for the
moment not commiting their investigations
There are reports, there are plenty of them,
this man has been observed doing this elsewhere in the past.
That's right, The Guardian newspaper says that
members of south Africa's deaf community
have raised concerns before about this interpreter
he's apparently been used that sum of stages
by the african national congress
now the ANC has told us they have used
him in the past but they didn not hire him for this