Veteran anti-apartheid activist Kathrada dies after brain surgery

FILE PHOTO: President Nelson Mandela talks to fellow veteran politician Ahmed Kathrada before Mandela's address to Parliament in Cape Town March 2, 1999. REUTERS/File Photo

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life imprisonment alongside Nelson Mandela and went on to be an open critic of President Jacob Zuma, died on Tuesday aged 87.

Affectionately known as "Uncle Kathy", the liberation struggle stalwart who spent 26-years in prison under the apartheid government, was hospitalised in Johannesburg this month after surgery to relieve blood clotting on the brain.