Walter Sisulu, senior leader of the African National Congress and colleague of Nelson Mandela, was freed Sunday after 25 years in prison. Seven other political prisoners also were freed, officials said.
Mandela, the most prominent jailed leader of the outlawed guerrilla movement, remains in prison, although his release within the next few months is widely expected.Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee and other government officials had conferred with Mandela prior to de Klerk's announcement.
Sisulu, 77, arrived under police escort at daybreak at his home in Soweto. Youths who had been waiting at the house lifted him atop their shoulders before he went inside.
"It is nice to be free," he said.
Also freed early Sunday, according to the Prison Services, were the seven others whose impending release was announced Tuesday by President F.W. de Klerk.
These include four men sentenced to life prison terms in 1964 along with Sisulu and Mandela - Andrew Mlengeni, 63, Elias Mostsoaledi, 65, Ahmed Kathrada, 60, and Raymond Mhlaba, 68 - as well as ANC leader Wilton Mkwayi, 67, sentenced to a life prison term in a separate 1964 trial.
The group also includes 80-year-old ANC activist Oscar Mpetha, who has been hospitalized in Cape Town, and Jafta Masemola, a member of the Pan Africanist guerrilla movement who lives outside Pretoria.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that Mandela negotiated the release of the eight prisoners during meetings between the black leader and a four-member government team headed by Coetsee, the paper said.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of blacks in South Africa's seven biggest cities and several towns staged jubilant "victory marches" to celebrate the imminent release of the eight prominent prisoners.
Organizers said never before had so many large anti-government marches been held simultaneously.