Joe Biden put the spot on claimed arrest while visiting Nelson Mandela

A voter has asked Joe Biden in South Carolina about trips to South Africa he has recalled in recent weeks on the presidential campaign trail, with some controversy over his recollections.

On Thursday, however, Biden did not claim that he was arrested trying to see the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, a prisoner during apartheid and later the first post-apartheid black president of South Africa.

Biden has introduced the supposed “arrest” multiple times recently as he’s campaigned, despite never having mentioned it in his memoirs or producing any record of it.

At least one other official involved in his trips, former Ambassador Andrew Young, has said publicly that he doesn’t know what the former vice president might have been referencing.

Biden campaign aides said after Tuesday night’s debate that Biden was referring to being “separated” for a period of time from some others in a U.S. delegation.

In Conway, Biden stuck to praising Mandela for healing his country rather than emerging from prison embittered.-AP