Parole for Terreblanche

Terreblanche has been in jail for six months

South African far-right leader Eugene Terreblanche, who heads the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), is being released from prison on parole.

He has served half of a one-year sentence for assaulting black petrol station attendant, John Ndzima, in 1996.

He will be on bail pending his appeal against a six-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of another man in 1997, which left the victim - a black employee - paralysed.

A prison service spokesman said Mr Terreblanche met all the parole conditions - including good behaviour and the fact he had a family to return to.

Eugene Terreblanche went to jail on horseback

The appeal against the attempted murder conviction is not due to be heard before next year.

Paul Motshabi, the former employee beaten by Terreblanche, suffered severe brain damage as a result of being beaten on the head with a lead pipe.

In the 1980s and early 1990s the paramilitary AWB campaigned to preserve white rule in South Africa, and advocated white supremacist ideas.

It attracted the support of a small core of hard-line supporters, but its support and profile have dwindled in recent years.