Complex Swap Frees 136 in Mozambique

A South African soldier, a French academic, a Dutch teacher and 133 Angolan troops were freed Monday in a complex prisoner exchange that took place here.

South African Maj. Wynand du Toit, the key figure in the trade, was escorted onto the Maputo airport tarmac by South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, who masterminded the long negotiations that brought his freedom.

The carefully timed releases began shortly before 2 p.m. local time when Du Toit, 29, captured during a South African raid into Angola in 1985, was put aboard an aircraft in the Angolan capital of Luanda.

French university lecturer Pierre-Andre Albertini, 27, was freed from prison in the South African Ciskei tribal homeland at about 4 p.m. and put aboard a military aircraft bound for Maputo.

Albertini was sentenced early this year to four years in prison for reneging on an agreement to testify in a treason trial of black dissidents.

Emerged From Embassy

At 5 p.m., Dutch fugitive Klaas de Jonge was driven from a Dutch Embassy building in the South African city of Pretoria to an air force base where a plane was waiting to take him to Maputo.

De Jonge, a former schoolteacher, was arrested in June, 1985, on charges of ferrying arms for the outlawed African National Congress. He escaped from police custody the following month and has since taken refuge in his country’s embassy.

De Jonge, 50, told reporters at the airport that he will continue campaigning for the release of his ex-wife, who is serving a 10-year sentence for treason in South Africa.

Also at 5 p.m., 133 Angolan soldiers were flown in from the bush headquarters of Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebel movement in southern Angola. The Angolans, freed by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, emerged from their plane wearing new jogging suits. Many looked very young--some no older than 16.

There was no official explanation of the snag that delayed the exchange from mid-afternoon until mid-evening, but the South African Press Assn. reported that a deadlock was broken when Foreign Minister Botha signed a written statement to the Angolan government saying more that Angolan as well as Cuban prisoners would be freed if they wanted to return to Luanda.

Botha has headed the attempt to obtain Du Toit’s release from Angola, where he was captured during a commando operation more than 1,200 miles north of South Africa’s border.

Du Toit was wounded and two soldiers with him were killed when they were discovered near a U.S.-operated oil installation. South Africa said they were spying on an African National Congress base in the area, but Angola alleged they were planning to blow up the oil facility.