Court reserves judgment in Janusz Walus parole bid

JANUSZ Walus, one of the two killers of SACP leader Chris Hani, will have to wait longer before knowing whether he will be released on parole or not.

The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, today reserved judgment on his renewed bid to be released from the Kgosi Mampuru prison after serving 27 years for the 1993 assassination.

His advocate, Roelof du Plessis SC, argued that the time has come for the court to for “once and for all” pronounce on the issue of parole.

Du Plessis asked the court to release Walus on parole, after Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola earlier this year refused parole.

Du Plessis argued that Walus has paid his dues for the assassination of Hani.

“In the words of Martin Luther King, we must forgive … Now is the time to show Ubuntu ….”

Du Plessis said the court should grant Walus parole and not refer the matter back to the minister for reconsideration, as it would mean a further delay in granting parole.

“This matter cannot go back and forth all the time. It makes a mockery of the justice process,” Du Plessis said.

He told Judge Elizabeth Kubushi that Walus had done everything in his power over the years, to prove that he had rehabilitated and that he had remorse for the killing.

A corrections service official who worked closely with Walus in the Kgosi Mampuru prison in Pretoria, had submitted a report in which he recommended that the Polish citizen be released on parole.

He said Walus was a model prisoner who had completed all the rehabilitation programmes and he recommended that he be given a second chance in life, outside the prison walls.

A social worker also submitted a report in which she said that Walus has truly shown remorse and that he has tried to contact the Hani family to apologise to them, Du Plessis said.

“It is now time to give the man a second chance … Somebody at a stage must make that decision,” he said.

Advocate Marumo Moerane SC, acting for the minister, said it is ironic that the Walus camp is arguing the principles of ubuntu, while Walus exhibited the opposite when he executed Hani.

Moerane said Walus expressed his remorse only 20 years after the murder of Hani, when he for the first time, applied for parole.

“The deceased in this matter is not only a historical figure, but he is someone I personally knew,” Moerane said.

He argued that parole was not right, and as Walus was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime, there is no set time frame when he should be released on parole.

The widow of Hani, Limpo Hani, who was in court yesterday, is opposing the new bid for his release. Her lawyers argued that this was a crime unlike many others in the country.

The court was told that she did not accept Walus’s apology, nor did she or the SACP accept that he had any remorse.

A group of SACP members meanwhile displayed placards outside court, in which they called on Walus to “rot in jail.”

Pretoria News