MONDAY, 3.00PM
The long-awaited amnesty application by Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus, the men convicted of murdering former SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani in 1993, got under way on Monday in the Pretoria City Hall.
While a small crowd of SA Communist Party supporters carrying a banner reading, “No amnesty to Hani killers”, demonstrated outside the venue, the hearing was delayed for three hours when advocate George Bizos, representing the Hani family and the SACP, made a surprise presentation to the hearing of a set of documents which, he maintained, contradict the amnesty case put forward by the pair.
The hearing was postponed for three hours after the applicants’ legal advisers complained they had only received the documents 15 minutes before the hearing.
Harry Prinsloo, for Derby-Lewis, contended that the statements contained in the documents, purportedly made by his client, might be inadmissible as they were made while he was in detention before his trial. “The statements were not tendered at the trial of Mr Derby-Lewis, and were purportedly made while he was detained in terms of Section 29 [of the Internal Security Act]. It may be that these documents will also be regarded as inadmissible.”
Judge Hassen Mall, presiding over the hearing, agreed to adjourn it to 2pm.
“There are matters which are of vital importance on the issue as to whether full disclosure has been made or not. There are also vital documents for the ascertaining of the truth,” said Bizos, adding that he did not know why the attorney-general did not use the statements in the criminal trial of the applicants.
MONDAY, 4.30PM
When the hearing readjourned, the amnesty committee heard testimony from Walus that he acted alone in assassinating Hani in April 1993. In his amnesty application he confirmed that Derby-Lewis had supplied him with the murder weapon and ammunition.
In explaining his decision to target Hani, Walus said the SACP leader’s public statements pointed to the inevitability of a communist government. Walus said he immigrated to South Africa from Poland to escape the “communist yoke”, and had first-hand experience of the “realities of communism”.
In his application, Derby-Lewis admitted to jointly planning Hani’s assassination with Walus and providing the weapon. “Although I proposed to delay the actual execution of the assassination of Chris Hani until I had given it further thought, I, however, accepted and associated myself with its execution on the day in question.”
Much of the afternoon’s proceedings involved legal arguments about whether the statements made by the applicants in the documents presented by Bizos were made voluntarily.