Former S Africa President Botha in hospital-report

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 13 (Reuters) P W Botha, the iron-fisted former South African president accused of using torture and death squads to maintain white minority rule, was rushed to hospital today, the state broadcaster SABC reported.

Botha, 90, was admitted to the George Medi-Clinic, near his home in George, the Western Cape resort town, according to hospital manager George Schutte, SABC reported. Schutte would not give any details on Botha's condition.

Botha was toppled in a cabinet rebellion in 1989 and later replaced by F W de Klerk, who repudiated almost everything the finger-wagging former leader had stood for, including the laws that were the foundation of apartheid.

Although Botha's security forces killed more than 2,000 people and an estimated 25,000 people were detained without trial and often tortured, he refused to apologise for apartheid and denied he had known about the torture and assassinations.

He also declined to appear when summoned by the state-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which blamed him for much of the horror of the last decade of white rule.

REUTERS SP BST1915