Derby-Lewis ‘not vigilant enough’ for parole – lawyer

CLIVE Derby-Lewis, who is applying for medical parole in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, was not vigilant enough to secure a release, according to state advocate Graham Bester.

Derby-Lewis, serving a life sentence for killing SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani, is applying for medical parole after five failed attempts since 2007. Doctors have given him only a few months to live.

Bester told the second day of the hearing yesterday that Derby-Lewis, 79, should have known the requirements he had to meet in line with the wishes of Hani’s wife Limpho Hani.

Bester said representations Limpho made early this year for Derby-Lewis’s medical parole were the same as those she submitted in 2011 when he applied for normal parole, and he knew what Justice Minister Michael Masutha would base his decision on.

“He cannot now claim that there was unfair administrative action,” Bester said.

“Adopting this attitude, knowing full well Mrs Hani would make representations by January 9 before the minister made his decision. [Derby-Lewis] then does nothing to follow up on the submissions and request a copy thereof.”

Bester said Derby-Lewis’s failure to secure medical parole and his call for procedural unfairness could be ascribed to “his own lack of vigilance”.

The Correctional Services Act states that medical parole should only be given if the applicant has cancer that has metastasised, or is at stage four.

Mike Sathekge, head of nuclear medicine at the University of Pretoria, who advised the Medical Parole Advisory Board, did not think Derby-Lewis’s cancer had spread. However two other independent doctors diagnosed Derby-Lewis with stage four cancer.

However, the MPAB still recommended that Derby-Lewis be released on medical parole.