PW Botha, unrepentant defender of apartheid, dies aged 90

The former South African president P W Botha, who never publicly repented of his hardline stance during the country's worst years of racial violence, died last night aged 90 at his seaside home in the Western Cape.

According to a security guard at the apartheid-era president's home at Wilderness, near George on the east coast, Botha died "peacefully" yesterday evening after suffering a heart attack.

Known for his violent temper and finger wagging, Botha was nicknamed die Groot Krokodil (the Great Crocodile). As prime minister from 1978 to 1984 and state president from 1984 to 1989, he staunchly resisted international pressure to release Nelson Mandela. Nevertheless, he eventually saw the writing on the wall for the racist apartheid system and initiated political changes that would ultimately enable the peaceful transition to majority rule. His successor, F W de Klerk, eventually released Mr Mandela in 1990.

Pieter Willem Botha retired to almost complete reclusion at his cottage, De Anker, after 1998, when he was found guilty and given a suspended jail sentence for refusing to testify at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He called the TRC "a circus". In its final report, the commission said Botha ordered the 1988 bombing of a Johannesburg building that was housing an anti-apartheid group, and that he was also directly accountable for the 1987 bombing of the ANC's London headquarters.

But in March this year, he made a rare appearance at the launch of a DVD collection of interviews with a South African journalist which all the major South African broadcasters had turned down. At the launch, which was attended by about 70 people, Botha, who had been rumoured to be suffering from dementia, disproved gossips with a snide remark almost certainly aimed at Mandela. "I know of other people in South Africa who are not compos mentis and I will not discuss them," he said.

Questioned about his career, he expressed no regrets, saying that he did not believe in the "Rainbow Nation" and that he remained opposed to affirmative action. He said he had no regrets about not having released Mandela: "I told him to renounce violence, which he did not do. He kept himself in jail at that stage."

Throughout his years in power, Botha underlined the importance of security to prevent a "total onslaught" by communists. He insisted on maintaining racial segregation and made it clear his prime loyalty was towards the broader white population of just under three million people, or 8 per cent of the total.

The son of a farmer in the rural Orange Free State, Botha left university in 1935 to become a full-time organiser for the National Party. After supporting the pro-Nazi Ossewabrandwag (Ox Wagon Fire Guard) during the Second World War, he was elected to parliament in 1948, the year the National Party came to power. He helped to draft much of the early apartheid legislation and became defence minister in 1966.

Botha suffered a stroke in January 1989 and a week later resigned as leader of the National Party. He was replaced by his rival de Klerk, the education minister.

He stayed on as president and in July arranged a secret meeting with Mandela in what critics said was a display of one-upmanship over de Klerk.

The ANC said last night: "The African National Congress extends its sympathies and condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of former President P W Botha. The ANC wishes his family strength and comfort at this time."