* Hassen Mall; South African Truth and Reconciliation Leader

Hassen Mall, 79, South Africa’s first nonwhite acting judge, who was at the forefront of efforts to bring about racial reconciliation. Mall was a senior member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body set up to probe apartheid-era crimes and give victims a forum in which to tell of their suffering. He chaired the commission’s most controversial committee, which heard amnesty applications from both those who committed crimes enforcing white rule and those trying to overthrow it. Born in India, he immigrated to South Africa as a child and went on to study law. He was a lawyer for 43 years before his appointment as a full-time judge in 1993. But it was his appointment in 1988 as the country’s first nonwhite acting judge that caused a stir within conservative legal circles. Mall also served as secretary of the Natal Indian Congress--a political group that opposed apartheid. On Friday in Durban, South Africa, apparently of complications from heart and kidney problems.