Family gather to say farewell to Derby-Lewis
SOULMATES till the end; that was how Gaye Derby-Lewis described her husband Clive Derby-Lewis, who was jailed in 1993 for the murder of SACP leader and freedom hero Chris Hani.
Derby Lewis died on Thursday after being released on medical parole in June last year. He had served 22 years in prison.
Gaye Derby-Lewis painted a warm picture about the man she met when she joined the Conservative Party in the ‘70s and married in 1986.
“He was a kind person. Clive was loved by everyone, except those in the SACP, of course,” she said hours after her husband died of lung cancer at Eugene Marais hospital in Pretoria this week.
At his bedside he had Gaye and their son Anton, who now lives in Canada.
Gaye spoke of the lengthy and frustrating journey of fighting for her husband to obtain medical parole.
“It saddens me. It frustrates me. It was hard. We were blocked at every attempt.
“He was treated unfairly by the Department of Correctional Services, but now I believe he is at peace,” she said.
She would not reveal her husband’s last words to her, but says he was in high spirits in the months before he died.
“He read books, he talked and joked around. He seemed happy.”
But it wasn’t always rosy for the couple.
Gaye spent half of her married life without her partner.
In 1997 she found herself answering questions before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty hearings about her husband’s involvement in politics – and about Hani’s assassination.
She was also arrested in November 2002, after ammunition and firearms were seized at her home in Waterkloof Ridge.
She has lived in several homes over the years.
Yesterday, a property that she’d rented in Villieria was a forlorn site.
The tenants there were not perturbed about the fact that she had resided there.
“She moved out a long time ago,” said a woman who didn’t want to be named.
Asked about her feelings about Shabir Shaik’s medical parole, Gaye said she didn’t even want to entertain the matter, describing it as a joke.
Derby-Lewis’s lawyer, Julian Knight, said he had not seen Derby-Lewis for months.
“I suppose that, as a lawyer, I did my best in assisting him in obtaining parole,” he said.
Knight, however, pointed out that the approach taken by minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Michael Masutha on his client’s medical parole was appalling.
He spoke of the people who had suffered as a result of government bureaucracy.
“The fact that medical paroles are centered around how well connected you are, is very sad,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gaye said her husband will be laid to rest on Wednesday next week, and that his daughters are expected to arrive in the country soon.