South African anti-apartheid leader dies at 87

Johannesburg — Anti-apartheid leader Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in prison for opposing South Africa’s white minority government — much of that time alongside the country’s first black president, Nelson Mandela — died Tuesday at the age of 87.

Kathrada late in life became such a scathing critic of current President Jacob Zuma, even pleading with him to resign, that he requested Zuma not attend his funeral, the Mail & Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. Kathrada had been distressed by the numerous corruption allegations against the leader of a country he had long fought to see exist.

“I can imagine how pained he was that he left at this point in time,” said Mandela’s exwife Winnie Madikizela Mandela, who wept at Kathrada’s memorial and had supported his call last year for Zuma’s departure. “It is a tragedy that he did live and saw what is happening today.”