7 Apr 2013

Mandela discharged

5:57 am on 7 April 2013

Former president Nelson Mandela of South Africa has been discharged from hospital after a 10-day stay for pneumonia. It was his third admission to hospital in four months.

Mr Mandela, 94, contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner under the country's former apartheid regime, when he spent 27 years on Robben Island and in other prisons.

He was in hospital briefly in early March for a check-up and was hospitalised in December for nearly three weeks with a lung infection and after surgery to remove gallstones.

Mr Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He stepped down as president in 1999 and has not been politically active for a decade.