Nelson Mandela’s video interview discovered after 60 years

Anti-apartheid revolutionary African leader Nelson Mandela’s first known television interview has been discovered almost 60 years after it was recorded, The Nelson Mandela Foundation has said.

The 24-second clip was filmed during a break at the infamous 1956 Treason Trial, which lasted four-and-a-half years, it said on Thursday.

The interview was conducted at the Old Synagogue in Pretoria, which was used as a court for the Treason Trial.

Mandela was in one of the last groups of 28 accused in the marathon trial who were acquitted on March 29, 1961.

Days later, Mandela went underground until his arrest on August 5, 1962, which ultimately saw him spend 27 years in prison, most of them on Robben Island, before becoming the first democratically-elected President of South Africa.

The recently resurfaced video was broadcast on January 31, 1961, by a Netherlands television broadcaster, AVRO.

It was included in a programme on apartheid South Africa called “Boeren en Bantoes” (‘Boers and Bantus’, the references to white and black South Africans used during the apartheid era).

It is unclear who conducted the interview and the exact date was not immediately available.

“We are excited to have this historical material of what we now believe is the first television interview with Mandela,” said Sello Hatang, chief executive officer, of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

“It was previously believed the first television interview was done while Nelson Mandela was underground in late May 1961,” the foundation said.

British journalist Brian Widlake was taken to his secret hideout in Johannesburg for the interview. The rights holder, Avrotros, has waived its licence fee for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and has authorised it to use the clip for one year.