Nelson Mandela leaves hospital; deemed OK

Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, was discharged from an undisclosed hospital yesterday, after a diagnostic procedure to determine the cause of abdominal complaints.

"The doctors have decided to send him home as the diagnostic procedure he underwent did not indicate anything seriously wrong with him," the presidency said on its website. The 93-year-old was in good health, comfortable and surrounded by his family earlier, the office said.

Mandela underwent a laparoscopy, the South African Press Association said, citing Defense Minister Lindiwe Sisulu yesterday. It's a surgical procedure in which a fiber-optic instrument is inserted through the abdominal wall to view the organs in the abdomen or permit small-scale surgery, according to Oxford Dictionaries.

Mandela's hospitalization Saturday wasn't an emergency and was "preplanned," said Mac Maharaj, the presidency's spokesman.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison on an island near Cape Town for fighting for black rights and became the country's first black president after apartheid, the official racial segregation policy, ended in 1994. He negotiated a peaceful end to the old regime with leaders of the white minority government.

He stepped down as president voluntarily in 1999.

A year ago, Mandela was admitted to Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg briefly for an acute respiratory infection. He had radiotherapy treatment in 2001 after doctors found microscopic prostate cancer.

He moved back to Johannesburg on Jan. 29 after spending several months at his house in Qunu in the Eastern Cape province, the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times reported on that day, citing Maharaj.