Nelson Mandela coup plotters sentenced

The ringleader of a white supremacist plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela and drive black people out of South Africa has been sentenced to 35 years in jail, state media have reported.

Former university lecturer Mike du Toit was convicted last year of treason for his leadership role in the plot, after a trial lasting nine years.

He led the Boeremag, a militia of white supremacist loyalists.

In 2002 it attempted to overthrow the governing African National Congress.

Twenty other Boeremag members convicted of high treason were given jail terms of between five and 35 years in the court in Pretoria.

In July 2012 du Toit was convicted for being behind nine bombings in Johannesburg's Soweto township in 2002.

He was the first person to be convicted of treason in South Africa since white minority rule ended in 1994.

Analysts say that while race relations in South Africa are still tense, white extremist groups like Boeremag, which means Afrikaner Power in Afrikaans, have very little support.

BBC