Janusz Walus, a 69-year-old man who murdered South African anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani in 1993, has been stabbed in his jail just a few days following the country’s constitutional court order for his release on parole, the Department of Correctional Services in South Africa said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Correctional Services confirmed that Walus’s condition is now stable and that he is receiving the necessary healthcare.
“It is alleged that Walus was stabbed by another inmate from the same housing unit,” a spokesperson of the Correctional Services said in a statement, adding that investigations were ongoing. “Stabbing and other forms of disturbances are offences not warranted in a correctional environment and this case will be investigated.”
A fellow prisoner of Walus, who was said to has witnessed the attack on the 69-year-old assassin, told local media that Walus was on his way to the toilet when a guy attacked him using a "huge homemade knife." Although Walus attempted to fight back, the attacker reportedly managed to stab the Polish man once in the stomach. However, the correctional service said that Walus was attacked while he was standing in a queue for food.
“Janusz was just walking when the guy jumped on him. Janusz tried to fight back, he is fit, he gyms every day. The attacker was taken away by prison warders, nobody hurt him,” the witness said as cited by local media. “There was a lot of blood, but Janusz will survive. He stabbed him in the stomach only. It was only one guy who attacked him, nobody else joined in. We were all shocked, it was definitely not a gang-related incident.”
According to the constitutional court order issued last week, Walus was set to be released on parole on Thursday after spending almost three decades in prison since he was convicted on Hani’s killing.
Although the country’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has repeatedly refused to release Walus on parole, constitutional court chief justice Raymond Zondo, who admitted Walus's “conduct nearly plunged this country into civil unrest,” ordered the minister to release the murderer within 10 days after the court order as he was entitled under law to parole.
The Ministry of Home Affairs of South Africa pointed out that Walus, an immigrant from Poland, would have to serve out his parole in South Africa, and should not be allowed to flee to his home country.
Nevertheless, Hani’s family has slammed the court decision to release the assassin as “diabolical”.
“This judgment is diabolical, totally diabolical,” Hani’s widow, Limpho, commented on the constitutional court order. “This court has not even addressed the victims.”
On April 10, 1993, Hani, an anti-apartheid leader from the South African Communist Party (SACP), was killed on his way back home in a suburb east of Johannesburg at the time when the negotiations that ended apartheid in South Africa were being held. The assassination took place a year ahead of the nation’s first multiracial election in its history.
Walus, who immigrated to South Africa in 1981 from then-communist Poland, was assisted in carrying out the crime by South African politician and parliament member from the Conservative Party Clive Derby-Lewis, who supplied him with a gun to take out Hani. Derby-Lewis died of lung cancer in 2016, one year after he had been released on medical parole. He spent 22 years in jail.