April 30 (UPI) -- Denis Goldberg, a South African anti-apartheid activist who spent 22 years in prison and was a close associate of Nelson Mandela, has died, his family said Thursday. He was 87.
A statement from his family on the Denis Goldberg Legacy Foundation Trust website said he died late Wednesday.
"His was a life well lived in the struggle for freedom in South Africa. We will miss him," the statement said.
The cause of his death wasn't revealed.
Born in Cape Town in 1933, Goldberg faced anti-Semitic attacks as a youngster, inspiring his activism to end apartheid in South Africa as an adult.
"I understood that what was happening in South Africa with its racism was like the racism in Nazi Germany in Europe that we were supposed to be fighting against," he said in an interview in 2019.
He became a member of the military arm of the African National Congress -- the Umkhonto we Sizwe -- and was jailed after participating in a protest in 1960.
He was one of 13 defendants in the so-called Rivonia Trial in 1963, in which he and Mandela were found guilty of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Goldberg served 22 years at Pretoria Centra Prison, while Mandela spent most of his 27-year sentence at Robben Island.
Goldberg moved to London after his release in 1985 and continued to fight against apartheid. He returned to South Africa in 2002.
