Mandela's Memory Is Fading, Friend Says

Well, he is 94 now.

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's frail anti-apartheid hero who spent a night in hospital at the weekend for a medical checkup, is doing well but has memory lapses, a close friend said on Monday.

Renowned South African human rights lawyer George Bizos, who defended Mandela during his 1960s treason trial, said that while the 94-year-old is aware of current political events, he forgets at times that his fellow anti-apartheid activists are dead.

"Unfortunately he sometimes forgets that one or two of them had passed on and has a blank face when you tell him that Walter Sisulu and some others are no longer with us," Bizos told Eyewitness News in an interview published on Monday.