Madiba's street name replaced with that of Chris Hani killer

As South Africans prepared to celebrate Nelson Mandela Day on Sunday evening, a bunch of rightwingers in Pretoria had different, and unsavoury, ideas.

The six whites went around Nelson Mandela Drive in Pretoria at about 11pm replacing Mandela's name with that of convicted murderer Clive Derby-Lewis.

Derby-Lewis is one of the two men who were convicted of killing former South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.

Derby-Lewis is currently serving time at C-Max in Pretoria and his application for parole has been turned down twice in the 17 years that he's been in prison.

Gauteng police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Tshisikhawe Ndou said police spotted the men through Tshwane Metro Police CCTV cameras, followed and arrested them.

Ndou said the men, aged between 25 and 38 years, were charged with malicious damage to property and would appear in the Pretoria magistrate's court today.

City of Tshwane spokesperson Console Tleane said the city "views this in a serious light. Surely, their actions were out of line with the sentiments shared by billions in the world", Tleane said.

Pretoria News has video footage that shows that when the suspects were caught, they had already replaced Mandela's name on some of the street signs with that of Derby-Lewis, who was jailed for the 1993 killing of SACP leader Chris Hani.

The men were first spotted by CCTV operators at the operation centre while they were trying to replace the Nelson Mandela Drive sign with "Clive Derby-Lewis Str" on the corner of Nelson Mandela Drive and Rissik Street.