Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis, convicted killers of South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Chris Hani, on Wednesday invited leaders of the SACP to visit them in jail and ask any questions about the murder.
Their legal representative faxed a letter to SACP secretary general Blade Nzimande inviting a delegation to meet them and their lawyers.
”Ask us any questions you like about Chris Hani’s assassination and we will personally give you the facts,” the two said through their attorney’s firm, De Klerk and Marais, in Pretoria.
This come after delegates to the SACP congress held in Port Elizabeth last weekend reportedly opened the meeting with a song chanting and asking President Thabo Mbeki to tell them who murdered Hani.
The Young Communist League has repeatedly called for the re-opening of Hani’s murder investigation.
In the letter, Walus and Derby-Lewis say they would give answers to any questions the party might want, including documentary evidence they might have, and the probable reason why Hani was without any bodyguards on the morning of the killing.
SACP spokesperson Malesela Maleka confirmed that the party had received the letter but that Nzimande had not yet read it.
They would only decide what to do when he had done so.
Walus and Derby-Lewis were arrested shortly after Hani’s murder in April 1993.
They were convicted for the crime and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to life imprisonment when capital punishment was outlawed in 1995.
They applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission but were denied it in 1999.
In 2000, the Cape High Court dismissed an application by Derby-Lewis and Walus to overturn the TRC’s decision. — Sapa