Janusz Jakub Waluś[1] (/ˈjɑːnəs ˈwɒləs/ YAH-nəs WOL-əs, Polish: [ˈjanuʂ ˈjakub ˈvaluɕ]; born 14 January 1953)[2] is a Polish right-wing extremist who was convicted of the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).
After the family business went bankrupt some years later, Waluś, then a truck driver,[5] joined both the National Party and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, becoming more and more involved in the far-right politics supporting South Africa's apartheid regime.
The police found a hit-list that suggested Hani was the third target on Waluś's and Derby-Lewis's list, which also included the names and addresses of Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo, among others.
[9] Clive Derby-Lewis was released from prison on medical parole in June 2015 after serving 22 years;[10] he died on November 3, 2016, from lung cancer.
[12] The Department of Home Affairs indicated in September 2016 that Waluś would be stripped of his South African citizenship and deported back to Poland if he was released on parole.
[14] Meeting on 29 May, the court reserved judgment in the case, citing a procedural irregularity involving the Hani family's victim impact statement.
[15] During the hearing, Waluś's advocate, Roelof du Plessis, stated that his client's South African citizenship had been revoked by the Department of Home Affairs "just a few weeks" earlier, and that a warrant for his deportation had been issued.
[19] Hani's widow Limpho continued to oppose his release, believing his admission of remorse to be insincere, and pointing out that other convicted assassins (such as James Earl Ray, the accused murderer of Martin Luther King Jr.) spent the rest of their lives in prison.