Limpho Hani: Walus wasn’t the lone gunman
GUNMAN HAD HELP LIMPHO
THE mystery around the assassination of struggle icon Chris Hani deepened yesterday when his widow Limpho told Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina that there was another gunman besides Janusz Walus.
During a tour of the house at No 2 Hakea Crescent in Dawn Park, Boksburg, where Hani was shot dead 23 years ago, Limpho showed Masina bullet marks on the garage door which she said showed that Walus was not the only trigger man.
“They [police] refused to investigate,” she said.
However, Limpho declined to elaborate in the presence of journalists. But after Walus was arrested for killing Hani in his home, he later told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he was alone.
He was convicted and sentenced to death, which was later commuted into life imprisonment.
His co-conspirator, Clive DerbyLewis, who died of lung cancer two weeks ago, was arrested for aiding and abetting Walus in Hani’s assassination.
Derby-Lewis was also convicted and sentenced to death, which was also commuted into life in prison.
He was released on medical parole last year.
Limpho said when she walked through the house’s main door yesterday, she remembered how her husband’s lifeless body was lying in a pool of blood. “It took me moments to recover,” she said.
When she entered the main bedroom during the tour of the property, Limpho delighted the touring party when she reminisced: “This is where it was happening!”
Yesterday, the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality announced that it had bought Hani’s former house to turn it into a museum. The metro also plans to erect a giant statue of the former SA Communist Party leader.
Previous Ekurhuleni administrations had tried unsuccessfully to buy the house. Once the R50-million project, which includes the purchasing of the house is complete, it will have a library and a narrative centre similar to the R62-million OR Tambo Narrative Centre in Wattville, Benoni, also in Ekurhuleni.
Masina, however, declined to reveal the purchase price, saying he was protecting the previous owner.
The Hani museum project will take up to three years to be finalised and be open to the public as consultations with residents still need to be undertaken.
The nearby Dawn Park Clinic will also be renamed after the former uMkhonto weSizwe chief of staff.
Masina promised residents that there would be business opportunities for them once the project was completed. He said the family had also been asked to make some memorabilia available for the museum.
One ecstatic resident told Sowetan he hoped the Hani museum project would increase the value of their properties.