(ANSA) - JOHANNESBURG, SEPTEMBER 10 - George Bizos, anti-apartheid icon and well-known human rights lawyer who defended Nelson Mandela from the accusation of treason and thanks to which he escaped the death penalty, died yesterday in Johannesburg, at the age 92 years old.
South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosane announced his death in online media.
"It is very sad for our country", he commented.
Bizos died of natural causes in his Johannesburg, he made his family known.
The famous lawyer represented Mandela during the Rivonia trial which saw Mandela and seven other apartheid activists sentenced to life in prison in 1964 on charges of trying to overthrow the racist government.
Bizos, of Greek origin, had arrived in South Africa at 13 as a war refugee and had become one of the country's most respected lawyers, continuing to work until the end of the 1980s.
In one of his latest trials he had obtained government compensation for the families of 34 miners killed by police in Marikana, northwest of Johannesburg, two years before.
(HANDLE).