A CIA agent gave the tip-off to South African authorities that led to the arrest of Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era, according to a filmmaker's interview with the agent on his deathbed.

British film director John Irvin’s interview with former CIA agent Donald Rickard about Mandela’s arrest in 1962 is to be used as part of Irvin’s new film, Mandela’s Gun, which is set to be screened at Cannes Film Festival this week.

“He could have incited a war in South Africa, the United States would have to get involved, grudgingly, and things could have gone to hell,” Rickard said, accordingly to The Sunday Times.