By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@GalloImages.
The Constitutional Court has set aside the decision of justice and correctional services minister Ronald Lamola to refuse parole to Chris Hani’s killer, Janusz Waluś.
Delivering his ruling, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said that “the minister’s decision was irrational, falls to be reviewed and must be set aside”.
Waluś, a Polish immigrant who killed the SACP leader and anti-apartheid activist in April 1993, has been serving a life sentence at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Facility.
Zondo said more than 15 years had passed since Walus had become eligible for parole.
The Constitutional Court ordered Lamola to place Walus on parole “on such terms and conditions as he may deem appropriate”, and to ensure that Walus is released on parole within 10 days of this ruling.
The court ordered Lamola to pay for Walus’ legal costs in the Constitutional Court, as well as the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The assassination of the anti-apartheid activist and South African Communist Party (SACP) leader brought the country to the brink of a civil war, at a time when the process of negotiating the transition from apartheid to democracy was at its most delicate.
Walus was convicted in October 1993 of murder and illegal possession of a firearm, and was sentenced to death for the murder and to five years in prison on the firearm charge. His co-conspirator, and former Conservative Party MP, the late Clive Derby-Lewis was convicted of conspiracy to murder and was also sentenced to death for his role in plotting Hani’s assassination.
In 1999, Walus and Derby-Lewis were also refused amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the grounds that they had “failed to make a full disclosure” about the circumstances surrounding the ordering of Hani’s murder, and had “failed to prove the killing was politically motivated.”
Following the abolishment of the death penalty in South Africa in 1995, their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment on 7 November 2000.
Limpho Hani, the wife of Hani, blasted Zondo following his ruling in the Constitutional Court to release her husband’s killer on parole.
“This court has not even addressed the victims. I don’t exist. He is busy giving us a lecture about a Polish man who came to SA to kill my husband. Do you understand how I feel?” Limpho asked.
“Chief Justice [Raymond] Zondo has failed this country completely, and I am not going to apologise. This country is finished. In this country, a foreign white can come into South Africa and kill my husband. He [Zondo] couldn’t give a shit. He couldn’t be bothered,” she said.
Limpho described the judgment as “diabolical”.
“I have never seen something like this in my life. If my husband was not killed, we would have never had elections. Mandela, after my husband was murdered, said to [FW] de Klerk for us to stop this, give us an election date. That is why Zondo and his friends today are sitting in this court.”
Walus, who became eligible for parole almost 17 years ago, after serving 13 years and four months of his life sentence, had been applying for parole since 2011 – and had been denied parole every time.