S’ Africa’s Anti-apartheid Veteran, Kathrada Dies Aged 87

Veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has died aged 87, his foundation says.

It says Mr Kathrada passed away peacefully in a Johannesburg hospital “after a short period of illness, following surgery to the brain”.

Along with Nelson Mandela, Mr. Kathrada was among eight African National Congress activists sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

They were convicted of trying to topple the white minority government.

Apartheid was a legalised system of discrimination against non-white people introduced in South Africa in 1948.

But laws that discriminated against non-whites existed prior to that.

Mr Kathrada, affectionately known as Kathy, spent more than 26 years in prison, 18 of which were on the notorious Robben Island, where Mr Mandela was also jailed.

He was not only one of Mr Mandela’s closest friends, but also a human rights activist in his own right who had a long history in the struggle against discrimination and apartheid, says the BBC’s Milton Nkosi in Johannesburg.

Source: TheSun