South African anti-apartheid leader Ahmed Kathrada dies, 87

FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2013 file photo, anti-apartheid activist and close friend of Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada, speaks during the funeral service for the former South African president in Qunu, South Africa. Kathrada died Tuesday, March 28, 2017, after a short illness at the age of 87. (AP Photo/Odd Andersen, Pool, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2013 file photo, anti-apartheid activist and close friend of Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada, right, is escorted after speaking at the funeral service for the former South African president, Nelson Mandela, in Qunu, South Africa. Kathrada died Tuesday, March 28, 2017, after a short illness at the age of 87. (AP Photo/Odd Andersen, Pool, File) (The Associated Press)

JOHANNESBURG – Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in jail — many of them alongside Nelson Mandela — for acts of sabotage against South Africa's previous white minority government, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning at 87.

Kathrada's foundation announced that he died after being admitted to hospital with blood clotting in his brain earlier in March.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929, to Indian immigrant parents in a small town in northwestern South Africa.

After being involved in activities against apartheid, South Africa's system of racial discrimination, Kathrada was arrested on the outskirts of Johannesburg July, 1963, when the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in the suburb or Rivonia, where he and other "banned" persons had been meeting. Kathrada was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.