South Africa to release man who wanted to spark racial war

South Africa’s Constitutional Court has ordered that a convicted murderer serving a life sentence for killing anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani in 1993 should be released on parole in 10 days.

Janusz Walus, an immigrant from Poland who had acquired South African citizenship, hoped the assassination would spark a racial war during the last days of the apartheid regime.

He has been in prison for the last 28 years and appeals to release him on parole have been vigorously opposed.

On Monday, widow Limpho Hani said the decision to release her husband’s killer was “diabolical”.

Walus together with his co-defendant Clive Derby-Lewis, who died in 2016, were sentenced to death shortly after Hani’s killing, but the sentence was commuted to life after South Africa abolished the death penalty.

They both appealed for amnesty during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997, with Walus saying that he was driven by political, anti-communist motives to kill Hani, who was then the secretary-general of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and also a leading figure in the armed wing of the African National Congress.

Walus’ imprisonment won sympathy and support from far-right groups in Poland.

Huge banners bearing his portraits and chants calling for his release have been a common feature at some football stadiums in Poland.

Merchandise like scarves and stickers celebrating Walus have also been sold online.

In 2016, Walus met Hani’s daughter, Lindiwe, in prison.

“He told her [that] when he lost his father [in 1997] then he understood that Chris Hani was not only a communist, but he was also a father and husband,” Polish journalist Cezary Lazarewicz told me in 2020.

“Walus told me that he was very sorry for killing Lindiwe’s father. But he never regretted [killing a] communist leader. He told me, in 1993, there was a war in South Africa and he felt like a soldier… he still believes in the system of racial segregation and that whites and blacks should live apart,” Mr Lazarewicz added.

In court on Monday Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said “the principle of equality before the law was not just written for those who fought apartheid – but those who actively supported it”, South African journalist Karyn Maughan reports. 

But Limpho Hani, speaking minutes after the judgement was made, reacted angrily, “this judgment is diabolical, totally diabolical”.

BBC Africa