Clive Derby-Lewis, killer of former South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Chris Hani, is expected to apply for parole in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.
Derby-Lewis, who was convicted along with Janusz Walus of killing Hani, is set to launch an application for release on parole.
Derby-Lewis (72) and the Poland-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 person serving a life sentence should be placed on parole.
Earlier, Derby-Lewis’s attorney, Marius Coertze, said his client would have been a free man on October 15 following a recommendation of the parole board.
”On August 19 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 October 15 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 Act and the Correctional Services Act, Coertze said.
However, the parole board gave the Hani family time to raise objections. — Sapa