CAPE TOWN/PRETORIA (Reuters) – A small group of demonstrators gathered outside South Africa’s parliament in Cape Town on Wednesday to protest against the release from prison of the man who killed anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani in 1993.
Janusz Walus, a Polish citizen, was granted parole last week after serving nearly 30 years of his life sentence for shooting Hani at point-blank range outside his home. Hani’s murder had triggered nationwide riots.
One of Nelson Mandela’s grandsons, Mandla Mandela, stood among a handful of black-clad demonstrators raising slogans outside parliament.
He recalled Hani’s close working relationship with the late Mandela, South Africa’s first Black president.
“This release of a murderer of a hero of our struggle for liberation invokes painful memories of the past,” Mandela told Reuters, saying such killers should be “locked up for life”.
Larger demonstrations took place outside a prison in the capital Pretoria where Walus, who is recovering from a prison stabbing, is still being held.
“He should not come out,” protestor Nontokozo Shezi said. “He can’t kill our leader and then think he can go home.”
(Reporting by Shafiek Tassiem and Esa Alexander; Writing by Sofia Christensen; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Arun Koyyur)
