In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Which leader was released from prison the same year?

The story behind the answer

Among the options, only the long-imprisoned anti-apartheid leader fits: he left prison after 27 years in early 1990, with the decision and preparations made in late 1989 as South Africa’s new president F. W. de Klerk began reforms. Desmond Tutu was free and serving as Archbishop, Thabo Mbeki was in exile, and Cyril Ramaphosa was an active union leader—not political prisoners at that time.

The Berlin Wall’s fall signaled the Cold War’s end, undercutting Pretoria’s “anti-communist” justification for apartheid. Combined with mass domestic resistance and global sanctions, that shift accelerated negotiations, the unbanning of the ANC in February 1990, and his release—events that led to South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.