By Louise Flanagan
Clive Derby-Lewis, Janusz Walus and Eugene de Kock are among hundreds of jailed prisoners who have applied for presidential pardons.
President Jacob Zuma told the Constitutional Court that applications by the three were among about 700 applications for pardons from members of political parties. They had not been processed.
Derby-Lewis and Walus are serving life sentences for the 1993 killing of Chris Hani. De Kock ran the apartheid police hit squad at Vlakplaas and was jailed in 1996 for two life terms and 212 years.
The information is in an affidavit Zuma filed at the Concourt to oppose the demand by 384 prisoners that he consider their 2003 applications for pardons within a month. These prisoners, supported by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), have been involved in legal action for more than two years to get an answer on their pardons.
Zuma said 188 of these applications were before him.
"I have every intention of completing the processing of these applications by the end of January, 2010," said Zuma.
"The intention is that I should be in a position to take a decision in respect of all the outstanding applications for pardon, where a political motive has been pleaded, by mid-year 2010."
Zuma said the prisoners' details of their offences and circumstances were inaccurate and the prison authorities could not say which of them were still in jail.
He said some of these were part of another group of about 2000 applications for pardons in terms of a special dispensation, set up with an advisory group from political parties.
Although the advisory group had dealt with these, Zuma said he could not finalise them because of an interdict from the Pretoria High Court brought by families of victims who wanted to be heard. A final judgment in this is still due.
The list of prisoners, their crimes, their sentences, their motives for their crimes and their reasons for wanting pardons was provided to the Concourt as part of Zuma's response to the prisoners' court action to get their applications processed.
All the information was provided by the prisoners.
Victims were not named.
Most did not apply for amnesty because the IFP did not support this or because their crimes were after the 1994 cut-off date.
Most did not regard themselves as criminals but rather as being caught up in a war between the IFP and ANC. Many justified their actions as self-defence.
Of the 384 applicants, 318 were convicted of murder and another 21 of attempted murder.
There were only two convictions for culpable homicide and both those prisoners were also convicted of attempted murder.
Another 36 were convicted of robbery.
Three were jailed for rape.