JOHANNESBURG, April 22: An American woman was awarded on Tuesday one of South Africa’s highest state honours for forgiving the men who stoned her daughter to death in the dying days of apartheid.

Linda Biehl was named to the Order of Companions of O R Tambo by President Thabo Mbeki at a ceremony in Pretoria, the office of the presidency said in a statement on its website.

Biehl and her husband Peter captured the hearts of South Africans in 1993 when they publicly forgave the killers of their daughter, Amy Biehl, a Fulbright scholar who was working with poor communities in the country.

The 26-year-old woman was killed on Aug. 25, 1993 when she drove into the Guguletu township outside Cape Town to drop off three black friends and was attacked by a crowd returning from a rally of the militant Pan African Congress.—Reuters