Janusz Walus, the extremist who killed South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Chris Hani in 1993
Despite no longer being a South African citizen, Janusz Walus will serve his parole term in the country, the ministry of home affairs said on Monday.
The conditions attached to the extension of permanent residence for his parole period of two years include that the man who murdered Chris Hani in 1993 will not be able to use any document to travel to Poland, his native country, the ministry said.
“The minister has granted Mr Walus an exemption in terms of section 31(2)(b) of the Immigration Act 13 of 2002, the rights of permanent residence for the parole period and conditions to be imposed by the minister of justice and correctional services,” said a statement released on behalf of Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Monday.
The exemption was necessary to allow Walus to remain in South Africa because he lost his dual nationality in 2017.
“The minister granted the exemption in order for Mr Walus to serve his parole period in South Africa and the exemption contains a condition that Mr Walus may not use any travel document and/or passport issued by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland,” the statement continued.
The constitutional court ruling last week ordering that Walus be released on parole within 10 calendar days posed a dilemma for Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola, who took the 2020 decision to deny parole which was successfully challenged in the apex court.
His office believed that it would be impossible to impose parole terms in Poland if Walus were deported, and this would effectively leave him a free man, subject to no further punishment. Motsoaledi took the same view, saying media reports suggested the Polish embassy believed no parole conditions would apply in Poland because the South African Constitution did not.
For the government, this was an unpalatable proposition, given the legal opposition of the South African Communist Party to his release and the popular outcry the ruling triggered last week, with Hani’s widow Limpho describing it as “diabolical”. President Cyril Ramaphosa also weighed in, terming it “very disappointing”.
Walus was denied parole on the basis — in the main — of the remarks of the trial court as to the severity of the crime, which brought a country then on the brink of democracy to the brink of civil war.
He said in court papers that releasing Walus would negate the severity of the sanction the sentencing court sought to impose. Walus was initially sentenced to death but this was converted to life in prison after capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional. He first became eligible for parole in 2005 and was denied four times before the constitutional court substituted Lamola’s decision with its own.
The apex court, in a unanimous ruling, found the minister’s decision irrational and unconstitutional.
Delivering the judgment he penned, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said, in his view, the remarks of the trial court as to the severity of the crime were relevant to the sentence imposed but were not so in the context of considering whether to grant parole. He also stressed that these were facts that would never alter.
Therefore, if the minister, who claimed release at a later date was not excluded, were to grant such, he would be faced with the following question, Zondo said: “Why is it that he did not release him in 2020 on the same facts?”
Motsoaledi’s office said a letter and certificate of exemption had been addressed to Walus and a copy forwarded to Lamola.
“The letter set out the exceptional circumstances requiring the granting of the exemption which, inter alia, include the fact that it would be in the interests of justice that Mr Walus serves his sentence to the fullest, including parole, in the Republic of South Africa,” it said.
Walus’s lawyers have told the media that the simplest solution would be to deport him to Poland. It is understood that he will serve out his parole under state protection, given the assumption of threats to his safety.