JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Janusz Walus, the convicted killer of South African anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani, will be deported to his home country of Poland after his parole expired this week, the government said Friday.
Hani, the leader of the military wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and the general secretary of the South African Communist Party, was shot outside his home in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, in 1993.
His assassination threatened to plunge South Africa into political violence ahead of the transition from white minority rule to democracy.
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Walus, 71, spent more than 28 years in prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. He was released on parole following a ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2022.
Clive Derby-Lewis, a former politician convicted of the murder along with Walus, was released on parole in 2015 and died of cancer in 2016. The two were initially sentenced to death, but their sentences became life sentences when South Africa became a country. democracy and abolished the death penalty. Derby-Lewis is believed to have planned the murder, while Walus was the triggerman.
News of Walus’ release in 2022 drew criticism from various sectors of society, leading to protests outside the prison where he was being held. He had to be hospitalized after being stabbed in prison a few days before his release.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said on Friday that Walus would be deported to Poland and that the Polish government would bear all costs of the deportation process.
Ntshavheni stressed that the decision to release Walus on parole was made by the country’s highest court and that the government has always opposed his release.
“Since 2011, our ministers of justice and correctional services have fought against parole, but there is no appeal outside the Constitutional Court, when it has ordered the decision to be final,” she said.
Walus was granted an extension of his stay in South Africa after his citizenship was revoked in 2017 while he was in prison and was allowed to serve his parole in South Africa rather than be immediately deported.
The announcement of his deportation was immediately met with criticism from the South African Communist Party, which believes Walus never showed remorse for his action nor provided all information about Hani’s death, including who ordered it.
The ANC has also called for a full investigation into Hani’s death.
“Today, the murderer of our leader will be released from prison, if he has not already been released, and take the truth about the murder of our leader back to his homeland.
“We are reminded of the enormous loss inflicted on our movement and our nation,” ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said on Friday.
