17 Nov 2017
Masutha: "There are inconsistencies in Walus' account of what happened when Hani was killed..."
Masutha says Walus has negative views about communists. Killing was "politically motivated".
17 Nov 2017
Masutha to announce decision on Walus parole
Justice Minister Michael Masutha will on Friday announce his decision on whether or not Chris Hani's killer Janusz Walus will be released on parole.
Masutha has called a press briefing where he will announce his decision on Walus' parole application. This follows a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in August which gave the minister 90 days to make a decision.
Walus, a Polish immigrant, and Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis, who supplied the weapon Walus used to kill the SACP leader in the driveway of his Boksburg home in 1993, were sentenced to death for the murder in October 1993.
Their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in November 2000.
17 Nov 2017
ICYMI:
Janusz Walus parole decision must consider Hani's widow - SCA
Justice Minister Michael Masutha must take a victim impact statement by Limpho Hani into consideration when deciding anew if her husband’s killer, Janusz Walus, should be released on parole, the Supreme Court of Appeal said on Friday.
The SCA upheld an appeal by Masutha against the North Gauteng High Court’s decision to release Walus on parole.
It gave Masutha 90 days to reconsider if Walus should be released on parole. The Polish immigrant shot SACP leader Chris Hani dead in the driveway of his Boksburg home on April 10, 1993.
The high court granted Walus parole on March 10, 2016.
The SCA said Masutha should take into account Hani’s victim statement dated October 30, 2013, and Walus’s response to it.
Hani had claimed Walus’s parole application was incomplete, the SCA said. The parole board had not been given portions of his trial record, portions of the application to reopen his trial, his application for amnesty to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and his application to review the TRC’s decision.
17 Nov 2017
ICYMI:
Janusz Walus' fate back in Masutha's hands
Justice Minister Michael Masutha has 90 days to reconsider whether Chris Hani's killer Janusz Walus should be released on parole, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on Friday.
The SCA upheld an appeal by Masutha against the North Gauteng High Court’s decision to release Walus on parole.
"The matter is remitted to the appellant [Masutha] for his reconsideration and decision within 90 calendar days of this order," the SCA said.
17 Nov 2017
ICYMI:
Janusz Walus 'stripped of his South African citizenship'
Janusz Walus has been stripped of his South African citizenship, his lawyer says.
Advocate Roelof du Plessis, SC, revealed this in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, where a full bench of judges will decide if Walus should be freed on parole, Netwerk24 reported.
“The representatives of the Department of Home Affairs confirmed it,” Du Plessis testified before Judges Christiaan van der Merwe, Jeremiah Shongwe, Mandisa Maya, Boissie Mbha and Ashton Schippers.
“But he can only be deported once he has been freed on parole.”
Walus and the late Clive Derby-Lewis killed the then leader of the SA Communist Party, Chris Hani, at his Boksburg home on April 10, 1993.
17 Nov 2017
Obituary: Clive Derby-Lewis
Former Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis, who has died aged 80, was jailed for life for his part in the assassination of Chris Hani, the South African Communist Party general secretary and Umkhonto we Sizwe chief of staff.
Together with Janusz Walus, the Polish truck driver who had gunned down Hani outside his Boksburg home on April 10 1993, Derby-Lewis had conspired to plunge the country into a race war and scupper the reconciliation process ahead of the country’s first democratic elections with a series of assassinations.
A target list of senior African National Congress and SACP figures, including ANC president Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo, had been uncovered by investigators.
The assassins’ plan had almost worked. A dramatic televised speech by Mandela, in which he appealed to South Africans to use the murder to affirm hopes for a united, democratic future, did much to keep black rage in check.
To further appease anger, Mandela had also used the occasion to force FW de Klerk’s Nationalist government to agree on an election date. The speech, many observers noted, established Mandela as the de facto leader of the country.