[imagesource: Cobus Bodenstein/AP]

On April 10, 1993, prominent anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani was murdered.

Polish immigrant Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis were sentenced to death for his killing, with the sentence later changed to a life sentence when South Africa abolished the death penalty.

Derby-Lewis, who provided Walus with the gun he used to murder Hani, died in 2016, one year after being granted parole, with Walus on the cusp of being paroled before the decision was overturned.

Walus continues to serve that life sentence at a prison in Pretoria, but back in his home country he has taken on hero status for some, with young Polish nationalists calling him “the great hope of the white race”.

Hani was the secretary-general of the South African Communist Party (SACP) at the time of his murder, and Walus said it was “political, anti-communist motives” that led him to pull the trigger.

About 10 years ago, Walus started receiving letters from supporters, with prominent displays by far-right football fans at matches in Poland, reports the BBC:

In pictures and videos posted online some of the football fans in the stands are carrying scarves with the hashtag #StayStrongBrother printed on them.

It’s inspired by a song dedicated to him which includes the lyrics: “A few men could ever take the step you did, to enter the path of glory and victory”.

“The fans are not calling on Walus’ release on humanitarian grounds, but they are glorifying what he did and the ideology,” Dr Rafal Pankowski, from Never Again association, an anti-racist group, told the BBC…

The BBC confirmed that scarves, a T-shirt, and a sticker bearing the name and image of Janusz Walus had been put up for sale on OLX’s Polish website. These items have since been removed.

OLX is owned by technology-investment company Prosus, which is a subsidiary of Naspers.

As coverage of the items for sale on OLX’s Polish site spread, Naspers issued a statement to the BBC, saying that “right-wing elements in Poland have violated the terms of use of the OLX Poland platform”, with spokesperson Shamiela Letsoalo adding that the items were removed as soon as they were notified.

That hasn’t stopped banners and flags praising Walus from popping up at football matches in Poland, with the Mail & Guardian covering that in-depth two weeks back.

One such banner from their story:

As part of a book he is writing, Polish journalist Cezary Lazarewicz interviewed Walus.

What he found was a man entirely unrepentant for his actions:

“Four years ago Walus met in prison with Hani’s daughter – Lindiwe. He told her [that] when he lost his father [in 1997] then he understood that Chris Hani was not only a communist, but he was also a father and husband,” Lazarewicz said.

“Walus told me that he was very sorry for killing Lindiwe’s father. But he never regretted [killing a] communist leader. He told me, in 1993, there was a war in South Africa and he felt like a soldier… he still believes in the system of racial segregation and that whites and blacks should live apart,” he added.

Ah, no wonder the right-wing nationalist football hooligans love him, then.

Earlier this year, when Walus was again denied parole, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said that his crime was “executed with the intention to create chaos and mayhem in the country”, and that granting him parole would nullify the severity that the court sought when sentencing him.

[source:bbc]