Mbeki Apology for Jail Ordeal

It will take Derek Bond some time to adjust to his unwanted celebrity status.

When he was told that the president was on the phone, the 72-year-old rotarian assumed it was the head of the Clifton Rotary Club.

But the man on the line was the South African head of state, Thabo Mbeki, calling to apologise after the British tourist's wine-tasting holiday turned into a three-week nightmare in a Durban police cell.

South African police arrested Mr Bond after he was wrongly identified as one of the FBI's most wanted suspects.

"Mr Mbeki spoke to me for 10 minutes and apologised on behalf of the people of South Africa," Mr Bond said yesterday, arriving at Heathrow after the FBI acknowledged its error and he was released on Wednesday.

Mr Bond said the president had invited him to visit South Africa again. "He said, 'This isn't our fault, you will come and have tea with me.'"

Mr Bond told a press conference how he feared to leave his hotel room after the ordeal and had every phone call screened.

"I was released and had one night in the hotel - I still couldn't go out of the bedroom, I couldn't leave the room.

"Every time the phone went I had palpitations."

The man suspected of stealing Mr Bond's identity, also a British citizen, was arrested by FBI agents in Las Vegas earlier this week.

Derek Lloyd Sykes, 72, who used the names Derek Bond and Robert James Grant, is suspected of stealing Derek Bond's identity while committing a multi-million dollar fraud.

Mr Bond said the South African authorities had treated him humanely but criticised the FBI, which left him languishing in a cell for three weeks.

"I was pretty low, I can tell you," he said. "I must say the South African police had little control over this situation and I was dealt with as humanely as can be.

"It was only when the media were alerted to this that something started to happen."