The World - News from May 11, 1989

Helene Passtoors, a Belgian jailed for treason in 1986 after smuggling weapons for anti-apartheid guerrillas into South Africa, has been freed, the South African Foreign Ministry said. Passtoors was handed over to Belgian consular authorities after serving more than three years of her 10-year sentence for aiding the anti-apartheid African National Congress, a spokesman said. Earlier, Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said Passtoors’ renunciation of violence paved the way for her release. She signed a statement promising to stay out of South Africa and its neighboring states and not to “participate in the encouragement, planning or execution of any violent activities ... against the Republic of South Africa. . . .”