Johannesburg, Nov. 1 (Reuters): Former South African President P.W. Botha, the defiant face of white rule at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, died at his home yesterday aged 90.

Widely known as “The Great Crocodile”, Botha, who presided over some of the worst excesses of the apartheid era during the 1970s and 1980s, had lived quietly in Wilderness, about 350 km east of Cape Town. Botha refused to apologise for apartheid and denied he had known about the assassinations.