Pretoria – Clive Derby-Lewis’s bid for medical parole is expected to be heard as a special motion in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.
He has been in hospital since last year to receive treatment for cancer. The Department of Correctional Services has not disclosed the name of the hospital.
Currently serving a life sentence for the April 1993 killing of SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani, he has been repeatedly denied parole, most recently in January this year.
At the time, Justice Minister Michael Masutha said Derby-Lewis had stage 3 lung cancer, and inmates only qualified for medical parole if they suffered from stage 4 cancer.
Masutha said he was not convinced that Derby-Lewis had shown remorse.
Last week, Derby-Lewis’s lawyer Julian Knight said the matter would be heard before Judge Selby Baqwa.
Derby-Lewis was arrested for providing the gun used by Janusz Walus, a Polish immigrant, to kill Hani in the driveway of his Boksburg home on 10 April 1993.
He was found guilty of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a life sentence after South Africa abolished capital punishment.
Derby-Lewis confessed to his role in the assassination before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
He claimed he had been following orders from the Conservative Party and was “acting in defence of my people, who were threatened with a Communist takeover”. He was denied amnesty.
From 2007, he lodged the first of several parole applications, stating that he was suffering from skin and prostate cancer and had gangrene in his leg.
News24
