FIRST, Ruth

Age 57

Description
A leading ANC/SACP intellectual and the director of research and investigation at the Centre for African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique who was killed in her office by a letter bomb on 17 August 1982. Before going into exile, Ms First, from Johannesburg, had also been detained and kept in solitary confinement for one hundred and seventeen days in 1963. Two members of Security Branch headquarters were granted amnesty for her killing (AC/2000/082). At the time of publication, the First family was contesting the decision through the courts.