Former anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin looks back on great escape

Forty years ago a trio of young anti-apartheid activists imprisoned in Pretoria Central plotted a daring getaway that involved making keys right under the eyes of their captors

17 May 2020 - 00:00 By Jonathan Ancer

Tim Jenkin poked apartheid in the eye. In 1978, when he was 29, Jenkin was imprisoned for distributing anti-apartheid material for the ANC. A day after he and Stephen Lee, his comrade in pamphlet-bomb arms, were arrested, they resolved to escape. Their idea was brilliantly simple: they’d make keys to the prison doors and let themselves out the front door...

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