South Africa's last apartheid leader F.W. de Klerk dies at 85

Former South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk, who negotiated the end of apartheid with Mr Nelson Mandela after spending years upholding the system of white minority rule, has died. He was 85.

JOHANNESBURG • Former South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk, who negotiated the end of apartheid with Mr Nelson Mandela after spending years upholding the system of white minority rule, has died. He was 85.

Mr de Klerk died at his home in Cape Town yesterday after having been diagnosed with lung cancer in March.

After taking power in 1989, Mr de Klerk removed a ban on the prodemocracy African National Congress, released Mr Mandela from jail, and managed the nation’s first all-race elections in 1994. He and Mr Mandela were awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for securing a smooth transition to democracy.

Mr de Klerk “had the courage to admit that a terrible wrong had been done to our country and people through the imposition of the system of apartheid”, Mr Mandela said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.