This translation has been automatically generated and has not been verified for accuracy.George Bizos, anti-apartheid activist, life-long friend and lawyer of the late former President Nelson Mandela, listens to speeches during the memorial service for Ahmed Kathrada, at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa, on March 28, 2017. Bizos died Wednesday at age 92.
The two met as law students. During Mandela’s years in prison, Bizos helped to look after his family, and he played a key role in negotiations for Mandela’s release in 1990. “In the last years of Mandela’s life, they were often to be found together, just catching up, sharing memories,” the foundation said.
Bizos remained active in human rights work in South Africa well into his 80s with the Legal Resources Center. In 2014 he questioned witnesses during an inquiry into the shooting deaths of several dozen protesters by police during a strike at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine in 2012.Bizos considered himself Greek and South African to the core. During the struggle against apartheid, he said he drew on his schooling in Greece about democracy and freedom.
Bizos later was part of the team credited with saving Mandela and others from the death penalty in the famous Rivonia Trial at which Mandela and seven others were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life in prison. Bizos wrote in his memoirs of rumours he was the model for Marlon Brando’s portrayal of a tough attorney battling the apartheid state in the 1989 film version of Andre Brink’s “A Dry White Season.” Bizos said he was consulted by the filmmakers on the script.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
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