DSAI and Mandela...

You see, there was a very distinct conversation I had with Mandela, unlike what they are talking about Najib. I was invited by him after I was released. The whole family, Wan Azizah (Wan Ismail), and the children were there too.

Mandela was such a remarkable man. I wanted to talk about him, but he wanted to talk about me! He said that it was different.

He told me, ‘I was the fighting the apartheid, you were deputy prime minister and treated this way by our friend and I can't do anything".

Then he started looking at the children. Nurul Izzah was probably 18 then, but the rest were very young, and then he became very emotional.

He was tearing. He said, ‘Anwar, people cannot ask a man to go through this'.

Then I joked and said, ‘never mind, this is my short walk to freedom’ (a reference to Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom).

I said this, not knowing that I would be in prison again after that. Mandela looked at the children, indicating that not only he but his children also suffered.

So then, I didn't continue with the serious discussion as I saw he was very disturbed... Anwar recalled.