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Legend of ZZL
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He played a key role in ending apartheid South Africa’s secret weapons program in the 1980s by helping the African National Congress bomb critical facilities.
By Adam Nossiter
Jan. 14, 2026
Renfrew Christie, a South African scholar whose undercover work for the African National Congress was critical in hobbling the apartheid government’s secret nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, died on Dec. 21 at his home in Cape Town. He was 76.
The cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter Camilla Christie said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa paid tribute to Dr. Christie after his death, saying his “relentless and fearless commitment to our freedom demands our appreciation.”
The A.N.C., in a statement, called Dr. Christie’s role “in disrupting and exposing the apartheid state’s clandestine nuclear weapons program” an “act of profound revolutionary significance.”
From the doctoral dissertation he had written at the University of Oxford on the history of electricity in South Africa, Dr. Christie provided the research needed to blow up the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station; the Arnot coal-fired power station; the Sasol oil-from-coal facilities that produced the heavy water critical to producing nuclear weapons; and other critical sites.
The explosions set back South Africa’s nascent nuclear weapons program by years and cost the government more than $1 billion, Dr. Christie later estimated.
By the time the bombs began going off, planted by his colleagues in uMkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the A.N.C., Dr. Christie was already in prison. He was arrested by South African authorities in October 1979 on charges of “terrorism,” three months after completing his studies at Oxford, and spent the next seven years in prison, some of that time on death row and in solitary confinement.
“While I was in prison, everything I had ever researched was blown up,” he said in a speech in 2023.
Terrorism was a capital offense, and Dr. Christie narrowly escaped hanging. But as he later recounted, he was deliberately placed on the death row closest to the gallows at the Pretoria Maximum Security Prison. For two and half years, he was forced to listen to the hangings of more than 300 prisoners.
“The whole prison would sing for two or three days before the hanging, to ease the terror of the victims,” Dr. Christie recalled at a 2013 conference at the University of the Western Cape on laws regarding torture.
Then he recited the lyrics of an anti‐apartheid folk song that reverberated in the penitentiary: “‘Senzeni-na? Senzeni-na? What have we done? What have we done?’ It was the most beautiful music on earth, sung in a vile place.”
“At zero dark hundred,” he continued, “the hanging party would come through the corridors to the gallows, slamming the gates behind them on the road to death. Once they were at the gallows there was a long pause. Then — crack! — the trapdoors would open, and the neck or necks of the condemned would snap. A bit later came the hammering, presumably of nails into the coffins.”
In an interview years later with the BBC, he said the “gruesome” experience affected him for the rest of his life.
Dr. Christie acquired his fierce antipathy to apartheid at a young age, growing up in an impoverished family in Johannesburg.
Many of his family members fought with the Allied forces against the Germans in World War II, and “I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them,” he said at a 2023 conference on antinuclear activism in Johannesburg. “I am not a pacifist.”
At 17, he was drafted into the South African Army. A stint of guard duty at the Lenz ammunition dump south of Johannesburg confirmed his suspicions that the government was building nuclear weapons. “From the age of 17, I was hunting the South African bomb,” he said at the conference.
Continued...
By Adam Nossiter
Jan. 14, 2026
Renfrew Christie, a South African scholar whose undercover work for the African National Congress was critical in hobbling the apartheid government’s secret nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, died on Dec. 21 at his home in Cape Town. He was 76.
The cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter Camilla Christie said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa paid tribute to Dr. Christie after his death, saying his “relentless and fearless commitment to our freedom demands our appreciation.”
The A.N.C., in a statement, called Dr. Christie’s role “in disrupting and exposing the apartheid state’s clandestine nuclear weapons program” an “act of profound revolutionary significance.”
From the doctoral dissertation he had written at the University of Oxford on the history of electricity in South Africa, Dr. Christie provided the research needed to blow up the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station; the Arnot coal-fired power station; the Sasol oil-from-coal facilities that produced the heavy water critical to producing nuclear weapons; and other critical sites.
The explosions set back South Africa’s nascent nuclear weapons program by years and cost the government more than $1 billion, Dr. Christie later estimated.
By the time the bombs began going off, planted by his colleagues in uMkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the A.N.C., Dr. Christie was already in prison. He was arrested by South African authorities in October 1979 on charges of “terrorism,” three months after completing his studies at Oxford, and spent the next seven years in prison, some of that time on death row and in solitary confinement.
“While I was in prison, everything I had ever researched was blown up,” he said in a speech in 2023.
Terrorism was a capital offense, and Dr. Christie narrowly escaped hanging. But as he later recounted, he was deliberately placed on the death row closest to the gallows at the Pretoria Maximum Security Prison. For two and half years, he was forced to listen to the hangings of more than 300 prisoners.
“The whole prison would sing for two or three days before the hanging, to ease the terror of the victims,” Dr. Christie recalled at a 2013 conference at the University of the Western Cape on laws regarding torture.
Then he recited the lyrics of an anti‐apartheid folk song that reverberated in the penitentiary: “‘Senzeni-na? Senzeni-na? What have we done? What have we done?’ It was the most beautiful music on earth, sung in a vile place.”
“At zero dark hundred,” he continued, “the hanging party would come through the corridors to the gallows, slamming the gates behind them on the road to death. Once they were at the gallows there was a long pause. Then — crack! — the trapdoors would open, and the neck or necks of the condemned would snap. A bit later came the hammering, presumably of nails into the coffins.”
In an interview years later with the BBC, he said the “gruesome” experience affected him for the rest of his life.
Dr. Christie acquired his fierce antipathy to apartheid at a young age, growing up in an impoverished family in Johannesburg.
Many of his family members fought with the Allied forces against the Germans in World War II, and “I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them,” he said at a 2023 conference on antinuclear activism in Johannesburg. “I am not a pacifist.”
At 17, he was drafted into the South African Army. A stint of guard duty at the Lenz ammunition dump south of Johannesburg confirmed his suspicions that the government was building nuclear weapons. “From the age of 17, I was hunting the South African bomb,” he said at the conference.
Continued...
