Post date: Jun 28, 2013 11:55:11 PM
South African police detain a freelance film-maker, caught flying a radio-controlled helicopter drone camera around the Pretoria hospital where ailing anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is being treated.
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA (JUNE 28, 2013) (REUTERS) - South African police on Friday detained the owner of a radio-controlled helicopter drone carrying a camera that was filming scenes around the Pretoria hospital where ailing anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is being treated.
F.C. Hamman, a South African freelance film-maker, was escorted away by police along with the helicopter camera he was flying with his 21-year-old son Timothyoutside the clinic where Mandela, 94, has spent three weeks with a lung infection.After nearly four hours of questioning by police, Hamman was released but the drone camera was confiscated.
Hamman said he had intended to offer to media organisations the aerial shots of intense activity around the hospital, where crowds of jostling journalists have mingled with well-wishers paying tribute to South Africa's former president.
The intense media scrutiny has angered some of Mandela's family. DaughterMakaziwe on Thursday (June 27) lambasted foreign media "vultures" for not respecting his privacy as he lay critically ill.
Hamman said he had already used the home-built flying camera in other film projects and had also assisted police with surveillance work in operations against suspected drug-dealers in the crime-plagued Johannesburg suburb of El Dorado.
The incident came just hours before U.S. President Barack Obama started an official visit to South Africa, which will include stops in Pretoria, Johannesburg andCape Town.