SACP welcomes Minister’s decision to not place Chris Hani’s unrepentant assassin on parole
16 March 2020
The South African Communist Party welcomes the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola’s decision to not place Janusz Walus on parole. Walus is the cold-blooded assassin of Chris Hani. At the time of the assassination, on 10 April 1993, Hani was SACP General Secretary and ANC National Executive Committee member. He served as the Chief of Staff of the joint SACP and ANC military wing, uMkhontoweSizwe.
The assassination would have succeeded to plunge South Africa into war, had it not been of the sterling and resilient intervention by the leadership of our movement in the midst of what nearly became an insurmountable situation. The Minister is correct in holding that ‘placing the offender Walus on parole would negate the severity that the court sought when sentencing him’.
Walus, the man who pulled the trigger, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of Hani’s assassination. Thanks to the struggle fought by Hani the communist, the struggle for the right to life, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
From the onset Walus made use of every opportunity to not serve his sentence, however. Among others he approached the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which denied him amnesty, and has consistently been applying to be placed on parole. This year April the 10th will mark 27 years since Walus assassinated Hani and there is still no full disclosure of the truth.
The gun that Walus used to assassinate Hani was taken from military armoury. The truth concerning who took it and whose hands it went through until Clive Derby-Lewis and Walus used it in carrying out the assassination has not been disclosed. In the same manner, the truth about those who supplied the silencer that the assassins fitted on the murder weapon has not been disclosed. Many questions that can only be answered through full disclosure of the truth remain unanswered.
Walus remains an unrepentant assassin who must not be granted parole.
Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee Member: Head of Media & Communications, SACP, 16 March 2020
