South African Anti-Apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada

He spent 26 years in jail for trying to topple South Africa’s white minority government. Veteran anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has died. He was 87 years old. For 18 years he was with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, and when he was released from prison in October 1989 at the age of 60, he continued the struggle for a non racial South Africa. After the first democratic elections in 1994, President Mandela persuaded him to join him in government as his political adviser.

Sarah Montague interviewed Ahmed Kathrada for Hardtalk in April 2014. A man who had given his entire life to the liberation struggle, he had no time for hatred or bitterness.

(Photo: Ahmed Kathrada. Credit: Getty Images)