Janusz Waluś, the man who killed anti-apartheid and former SACP leader Chris Hani, is set to be a free man at the ripe age of 69, after the Constitutional Court ordered he be paroled after several years of unsuccessfully trying to have the country’s authorities release him on parole.
The country’s apex court ordered that Waluś be placed on parole within 10 days. His accomplice Clive Derby-Lewis died in 2016 due to terminal lung cancer. Derby-Lewis was repeatedly denied parole after he began applying in 2010, after objections from the Hani family.
In the ruling, chief justice Raymond Zondo said the Bill of Rights must be applied equally, including to someone like Waluś, who qualified for parole 15 years ago.
“It was in 2005 that the applicant became eligible for consideration to be placed on parole. The minister [Lamola] accepts that the applicant has shown strong remorse for the crime he committed. The evidence reveals that during his imprisonment all these years since 1993, the applicant has had no negative disciplinary record in prison,” reads the judgment.
“The minister accepts that the applicant’s risk of re-offending, if he were to be placed on parole, is low. The applicant has apologised to Mrs Hani and her family more than once.
“The applicant cannot do anything about the nature of the crime he committed nor can he do anything about the sentence remarks that the trial court had made about him and the crime of which he was committed.”
In 1999, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) refused Waluś’ application for amnesty. The TRC, which was headed by Desmond Tutu, said it based its decision on the belief that Waluś failed to make a full disclosure and much-needed closure for his victims.
Waluś gunned down Hani at his home in Dawn Park near Boksburg, on the east of Johannesburg in April 1993 in what right wingers thought would derail plans for the country’s first democratic election in 1994.
The Polish-born Waluś was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after a democratic South Africa abolished the capital punishment.
At the time of his death, Hani, who was largely seen as a future president of South Africa, was the general secretary of the SACP. He also served as chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC.
Waluś has been refused parole at least four times, despite his lawyer’s claim that he was completely rehabilitated. The last refusal came in 2020 when Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola turned down his request due to what he described as the seriousness of the crime.
Lamola had argued that the remarks made by the trial judge in 1993 were one of the factors he relied on to turn down the application.
“The accused performed an act of assassination on a person who had attained prominence in public affairs in South Africa, whose killing was likely, to the knowledge of the accused, to cause far-reaching, highly emotive reactions with very damaging, serious consequences and extremely harmful effects for the entire society in South Africa,” the trial judge remarked.
“The killing was cold-blooded … after the first bullet struck him, the accused came close up and administered the coup de grace from close range.”
In denying Waluś parole two years ago, Lamola said: “The record before me clearly reveals that the court took this fact into consideration when sentencing Waluś to death.
“The crime was intended and had the potential to bring about a civil war within the republic at the time. It must also be noted that Waluś was convicted of murder with no extenuating circumstances having been found to be present.”
Hani’s widow, Limpho, opposed Waluś’ bid for freedom.
She had an immediate reaction to the Constitutional Court’s decision and lashed out at Zondo and his colleagues.
“This judgment is diabolical. I have never seen anything like this. My understanding of Zondo’s judgment is that he is indirectly saying Waluś did well by killing my husband,” she told the media after the judgment was handed down.
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