Dr. Percy Yutar (29 July 1911, Cape Town-13 July 2002, Johannesburg) was South Africa’s first Jewish attorney-general. Yutar was one of eight children in a family of Lithuanian immigrants. His father originally spelled his surname as Yuter before arriving in South Africa.

Yutar began his career as a lawyer in Johannesburg and later became a junior law clerk in Pretoria’s Palace of Justice. In 1940, he was appointed a junior state prosecutor and eventually become the Deputy Attorney General for the Transvaal. Yutar frequently suffered from anti-semitism, and was at first forbidden from joining the attorney general's office in Cape Town because a Jew appearing for the state in court was anathema at the time.^{[citation needed]}

He successfully prosecuted Nelson Mandela in the 1963 Rivonia Treason Trial and argued in favour of the death penalty. During the trial Yutar brutally cross-examined some of the defendants. Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage as a result of the trial. Yutar appeared to be indifferent towards Apartheid.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; born 18 July 1918) is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata (Xhosa: father). Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades.