CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNN) -- South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) said Wednesday it was launching an urgent court action to stop the publication of damning allegations against it by the Truth Commission.

Following similar legal steps taken by former South African President F. W. de Klerk, the ANC said it was moving to block the report -- due to be given to President Nelson Mandela on Thursday -- from including information implicating the ANC in apartheid-era crimes.

The ANC is Mandela's political party.

Earlier Wednesday, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said it would release its report without the damning statements implicating de Klerk, and that it may reinstate those statements after de Klerk's case has been heard by South Africa's High Court.

The court on Wednesday set a March 4 hearing for de Klerk's case.

An ANC spokesman acknowledged that the party was trying to achieve the same concessions as De Klerk.

Tutu, the truth panel's chairman, at a hearing

Specifically, the man who officially ended the racial separation and discrimination practices of apartheid in South Africa objected to a finding by the commission that he was "an accessory after the fact" to bombings in the 1980s of the headquarters of a church group and of a labor federation.

Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the truth panel's chairman, said the commission needed time to prepare to fight the legal challenge, and would "excise" de Klerk's name from the report to avoid delaying the document's release.

"It upsets me deeply," Tutu said. "We have been scrupulously fair to Mr. de Klerk and we reject the contention that we have been engaged in a vendetta against him."

The commission, charged with promoting reconciliation by laying bare apartheid's horrors, has held hearings around the country for more than two years. It listened to the stories of victims and alleged perpetrators, and has granted amnesty to perpetrators who fully confess to politically motivated crimes during apartheid.

The final report will make recommendations as to what action the government should take next to help South Africa heal the wounds of apartheid.

The commission has informed several organizations and individuals -- including members of the ruling African National Congress government -- that the report could recommend their prosecution.

"We're going to possibly see 20 to 25 serious almost war criminals being identified," South African journalist Max Du Preez said of the report's findings. "Hopefully, two or three or four or five of them, for the sake of symbolism, would be prosecuted."

Correspondent Mike Hanna, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.