Detainee Escapes From S. Africa

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31521, 8 November 1967, Page 21

Detainee Escapes From S. Africa

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, November 7. A South African schoolteacher said last night that he broke house arrest and fled his country’s security net by rowing boat—carryonly water and vitamin pills with him.

Mr Wilfred Brutus, aged 45, said he was picked up by a Panamanian cargo ship after spending two nights

aboard the open boat in stormy seas off South Africa’s east coast. The ship’s captain dropped him at Bahrain, and he flew to London last week-end. He is now staying with his brother, Mr Dennis Brutus, the coloured South African sports administrator who directs a campaign in Britain to release political prisoners in South Africa. Mr Wilfred Brutus disappeared on October 20 from his Cape Town home—despite daily checks by security police. He was on bail pending appeal against a three-year gaol sentence under the Suppression of Communism Act. He said that to protect his helpers he is withholding further details of his dramatic release, believed to be the first seaborne break-out by a South African political refugee. His wife, Martha, a nurse, is in Cape Town awaiting an exit permit, he said. •An opponent of apartheid and a member of the Coloured People’s Congress, he had been sentenced on a charge of breaking a banning order by receiving a visitor at home.