The leader of a 2002 plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela and push blacks out of South Africa has been found guilty of treason.

Mike du Toit, a former university lecturer who headed a militia known as the Boeremag, was convicted Thursday by the high court in North Gauteng province.

The militia supported apartheid, the now-defunct South African system of white minority rule and discrimination against blacks.

Witnesses testified du Toit and his supporters discussed assassinating Mandela, South Africa's first black president. They also hatched a plan to chase blacks toward South Africa's northern border into neighboring countries, using food as bait.

No sentencing date has been set. Verdicts on more than 20 other defendants charged with treason are expected during the next few weeks. All face life imprisonment.

Witnesses testified during the 9-year trial that Boeremag also carried out a spate of bombings in Soweto in 2002, killing one person.

Additionally, Judge Eben Jordaan said the evidence showed Du Toit was the author of a “war plan” known as Document 12, which was found on the defendant's computer after police raided his house in late 2001. Prosecutors said that document included plans to replace the African National Congress-led government with white Afrikaner military rule.