Hani killer Janusz Walus to contest decision to deny him parole
JANUSZ Walus, the gunman who killed Struggle icon Chris Hani, will bring a high court review of Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha’s decision to deny him parole.
Walus’s l awyer Julian Knight t old I ndependent Media yesterday that they want Masutha’s decision set aside and their client released on parole.
He said the review application would be brought within the next month.
Ye s t e r d a y, Masutha declined Walus’s parole application,brought on on April 10, 2015, the 22nd anniversary of Hani’s assassination.
Masutha said the Polish immigrant had not shown any remorse for killing Hani with far-right extremist Clive DerbyLewis, who died last year after being granted medical parole in 2015.
“He still rationalises his actions and insists they were politically motivated. His ideas about communism still stand,” Masutha said.
He said Walus expressed remorse for leaving the SA Communist Party general-secretary’s children fatherless and his wife Limpho Hani a widow.
Limpho Hani believes Walus remains anti-communist.
SACP first deputy general-secretary Solly Mapaila said Masutha made a very good decision on solid legal grounds to deny Hani’s killer parole.
He said Walus has not been truthful to the party, the Hani family and the South African public.
“This is an abuse of legal processes and we reject it with the contempt it deserves,” said Mapaila of Walus’s looming return to court.
He said the SACP, which with Limpho Hani opposed Walus’s parole bid, would continue opposing the killer’s court action.
According to Mapaila, Walus was like Derby-Lewis, who, after his release on medical parole, made a video of himself praising apartheid and reaffirming his hatred for communists.
Masutha said Walus showed no remorse for Hani’s assassination because he was a communist and still rationalised his actions.
Although Masutha said Walus had not acquired any academic and vocational skills during his more than two decades in prison, when he applied for parole at the Pretoria High Court last year, the killer said he had an employment letter from his brother, Tshwane businessman Witold Walus, who offered him a job at his company Drakensberg Truck Manufacturers.
A social worker’s report filed at the high court stated that Walus completed matric in Poland in 1977, worked as a glass cutter and had a business with his father.
Masutha said Walus should participate in an individual therapeutic programme with social workers to improve his assertiveness, decision-making skills, beliefs and behavioural patterns that lead to aggression.
The report revealed that Walus kept himself busy by exercising in the prison gym, attended individual therapy sessions with a social worker and was intensively involved in individual social work intervention programmes.
The report said Walus showed no signs of psychological disorders or disabilities, and expressed his feeling of remorse about Hani and his family.
The social worker’s report also said Walus wrote asking to be involved in victim offender dialogue and wanting to apologise to the victim’s family.
Another report, by a unit manager at Tshwane’s C-Max prison where Walus is serving time, was positive about his behaviour and adaptation.
The unit manager recommended day parole for Walus.
Masutha denied political considerations influenced his decision to deny Walus parole, saying he looked at what was brought before him and make rational sense of it.
He said Walus presented a potential risk and that a security risk assessment needed to be conducted.
Masutha will reconsider his decision to deny Walus parole within 24 months.