Pretoria - Having been disappointed time and again over the years, Chris Hani’s killer Clive Derby-Lewis did not expect to be released on medical parole.
This is according to his wife Gaye Derby-Lewis, who said her ailing husband did not show much reaction upon hearing the “bad” news.
“We – myself, Clive and a warder – sat in his hospital room this morning (on Friday) listening to the news. He had his radio on and when it was announced that his bid for medical parole was refused, he simply shook his head. He did not expect to be let out. He simply commented that it was par for the course,” Gaye Derby-Lewis told Pretoria News Weekend.
“You can’t keep knocking your head against the wall. They are clearly intent on him dying in hospital. But they won’t see that. They want us to give up but we won’t,” she said later.
His lawyer, Elsabé Joune, said after attending the media conference and receiving the news first-hand that Justice Minister Michael Masutha had refused him medical parole, she rushed to the Eugene Marais Hospital to share the news.
“He was not in his room and I left a note on his bed, simply saying his parole was turned down. All I could say was ‘I am sorry Clive’.”
Joune and fellow lawyer, Marius Coertze, have fought numerous court battles pro bono over the past seven years to secure both parole and medical parole for Derby-Lewis, who is 78.
The parole board recommended that Derby-Lewis be released on medical parole as he has lung cancer, a decision Masutha said he failed to comprehend.
Aside from concerns over Derby-Lewis using another name – which was the name of another patient admitted for a similar medical condition – he said medical samples that were used by the board showed that the patient had stage 3B lung cancer. Correctional services regulations state that for a prisoner to be considered for medical parole, he has to have stage four cancer with metastasis being inoperable, or with both radiotherapy and chemotherapy failure.
Masutha said: “I do not have enough information to corroborate claims that Mr Derby-Lewis is making, that… his version is correct. There’s nothing to suggest that (his) condition is such that he is rendered physically incapacitated as a result of injury, disease or illness …”
He said the department would investigate and if any fraud was found, Derby-Lewis would be charged.
Joune said: “I’m bitterly disappointed about the decision. We would have rejoiced if he had been released and I feel bitterly sorry for Clive. He deserved to be released because he is very sick. He is, however, a very positive person. He is optimistic that he will be released one day and he believes the Lord will carry him through this.”
She is especially upset about some of the reasons forwarded by the minister in refusing medical parole. Joune said the minister clutched at straws, especially when he insinuated that Derby-Lewis was guilty of fraud for “using the medical records of another person”.
According to Joune, the Department of Correctional Services, when they first took him to hospital in 2010, insisted that he be booked in under another name for security reasons.
“They chose the name, not us,” she said.
Joune said he was booked in either as Gerhard or Phillip du Plessis. She is not sure which but the name was t of a former manager of the Eugene Marais Hospital.
Joune said while the name simply appeared on Derby-Lewis’s hospital records, all the other information was his, such as his ID number and medical aid details.
The then manager was much younger than Derby-Lewis and if his ID number appeared on the records, it would be clear that it could not be that of the elderly Derby-Lewis. Joune said she had never met another Gerhard or Phillip du Plessis in hospital, adding that the coincidence would simply be too big if there was another person with such a name, with the same condition as that of Derby-Lewis.
She is also adamant that affidavits setting out the position regarding the name were handed over to the minister.
She and Coertze have launched about 10 applications since 2006.
There are still some legal avenues open, she said, as the minister had not yet decided on an application by them for normal (as opposed to medical) parole. Another court application in which the minister was asked to provide reasons for an earlier refusal to grant parole has yet to be concluded.
That matter was postponed indefinitely as the minister had still not provided reasons. Joune said she would now re-enrol that case.
Gaye also lambasted the minister’s claims that her husband was perhaps guilty of fraud because he used another patient’s medial records as “bulls…”.
She had never met a Gerhard or a Phillip du Plessis and her husband definitely did not use another person’s X-rays to fake his condition.
“I spoke to his oncologist and he said Clive is already inoperable. That is one of the conditions of stage four cancer.
“I am tired of all this fighting, but I won’t give up,” she vowed.
Pretoria News Weekend