Limpho Hani and the SACP officially entered the fray as respondents in the urgent application launched by Clive Derby-Lewis for his release on medical parole.
While it is certain that Derby-Lewis, who has been in the Eugene Marais Hospital since April this year, will not be home for Christmas, he will know his fate by the end of January.
Judge André Louw sitting in the high court in Pretoria, on Tuesday added the late SACP general secretary Chris Hani’s widow and the party itself as respondents in the 78-year-old Derby-Lewis’s latest bid to be released on parole.
Hani attended the court proceedings on Tuesday, but declined to speak to the media. Her lawyer, Mopane Thaanyane, however said it was important for her to join the proceedings and to have a say in the application.
Asked whether she was opposed to the release of Derby-Lewis, Thaanyane said “only she will be able to say”.
He added that neither she, nor the SACP, had yet had access to Derby-Lewis’s medical records and being a party to the proceedings would make this possible.
While the lawyer would not commit himself on whether they would oppose the application or not, he said the Hani family had since the murder maintained that Derby-Lewis hadn’t revealed the full truth about the assassination.
“They would like him to say more about what happened,” Thaanyane said.
Their complaint about a “full truth not yet revealed” however is said to be cheap ploy to keep Derby-Lewis in prison.
Many maintain that Derby-Lewis is in fact innocent. Chris Hani was gunned down on April 10, 1993, by Polish immigrant Janusz Walus, and not by Derby-Lewis.
While Derby-Lewis had provided Walus with a firearm, Walus had previously stated that he intended to use it in self-defence.
In terms of an agreement between his lawyers and Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha, the minister must consider his medical parole by January 31. The minister must on this date also provide his reasons for his decision.
The Medical Parole Advisory Board will consider all Derby-Lewis’s medical reports by December 10 and provide its recommendations to the minister by December 15.
This is the same day on which it will have to make recommendations regarding the possible release of Eugene de Kock on parole.
Derby-Lewis’s application says that he is old and needs frail care, which he will not receive in prison. He has remained in hospital for the past seven months, after he was stabbed in jail by a fellow inmate.
His health has deteriorated to such an extent that he is even too weak to receive surgery.
Coertze said Derby-Lewis suffers from a range of ailments, and his one lung was riddled with cancer.
He said they realised that the Hani family had the right to have a say in his release and thus did not oppose the application.