4 Apr 2010

Terreblanche killed in South Africa

South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche has been killed on his farm in the country's north-west. Mr Terreblanche, 69, was beaten to death after a dispute over unpaid wages, local media reports said. Two people are said to have been arrested.

terreblanche

Mr Terreblanche, who campaigned for a separate white homeland, came to prominence in the early 1980s. He became the champion of a tiny minority determined to stop the process that was bringing apartheid to an end.

"Mr Terreblanche's body was found on the bed with facial and head injuries," AFP news agency quoted a police spokesman as saying. The report said he had been killed after a payment dispute with two workers, who have since been charged with his murder. "He was hacked to death while he was taking a nap," a family friend in the town of Ventersdorp was quoted as telling Reuters news agency.

The murder comes amid growing anxiety about crime in South Africa and what opposition politicians say are irresponsible and racially inflammatory sentiments from a minority of the ruling ANC party, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Johannesburg.

BBC News