Janusz Walus will leave prison on Wednesday on parole

Chris Hani’s killer has been placed on parole, effective from Wednesday.

In a statement, minister of justice and correctional services Ronald Lamola announced he had placed Janusz Walus on parole under strict conditions.

Walus, whose release on parole was ordered by the Constitutional Court two weeks ago, was stabbed by a fellow inmate at Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria on Tuesday last week.

He has been receiving treatment in hospital since the stabbing. 

On November 21, the Constitutional Court ordered that Walus, who murdered SACP leader Hani in 1993, be released on parole within 10 days. 

In a statement, Lamola said Walus was only discharged from hospital on Wednesday. 

“He will serve two years under community corrections in line with the parole regime upon which he is released. There is no question Walus is a polarising figure in our budding constitutional democracy and that his release has understandably reopened wounds among some in society, especially the family of Hani,” Lamola said in a statement.

The minister went on to detail how Walus almost derailed the democratic project by killing Hani.

“Walus’s actions sought to derail the democratic project at its most critical, formative stage, when the choice of either setting the country on a sustainable path of peace, democracy and reconciliation on the one hand, or chaos, civil strife and bloodletting on the other, was constantly one bad decision away,” Lamola said. 

The minister said that in previously denying Walus parole, the decision was not in the spirit of avenging a stalwart of the liberation struggle, but it had always been within the context of giving effect to the interests of justice, from the perspective of what the sentencing court sought to achieve.

“Parole is an acknowledged part of our correctional system. It has proved to be a vital part of reformative treatment for the paroled person who is treated by moral persuasion. This is consistent with the law; that everyone has the right not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause, and that sentenced offenders have the right to benefit from the least severe of the prescribed punishments,” Lamola said.

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