Hani killer to go ahead

2008-10-28 10:05

Johannesburg - SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani's killer Clive Derby-Lewis is expected to apply for parole in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.

Derby-Lewis, who was convicted along with Janusz Walus of killing the SA Communist Party leader, is set to launch an application for release on parole.

Derby-Lewis, 72, and the Polish-born Walus, 55, were sentenced to death for Hani's assassination on April 10, 1993. Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1995.

Correctional services legislation had been amended a while ago to give the national council on corrections the authority to decide on whether a lifer should be placed on parole.

Earlier, Derby-Lewis' attorney Marius Coertze said his client would have been a free man on October 15 following a recommendation of the parole board.

"On 19 August he appeared before the parole board in Pretoria on a recommendation they received from the case management committee," he said.

"They recommended that Mr Derby-Lewis must be released on parole on 15 October 2008."

Because Derby-Lewis was 72 and had served 15 years of his sentence, he had become eligible for parole in terms of the Minimum Sentences and the Correctional Services Acts, Coertze said.

However, the parole board gave the Hani family time to raise objections.

- SAPA