Johannesburg - Clive Derby-Lewis may have won the court battle that he be granted medical parole, but it seems he will this week lose the privilege of being incarcerated at the five-star Eugene Marais Hospital, north of Pretoria.
The 79-year-old Derby-Lewis, who provided the gun that killed SACP leader Chris Hani, has been at the hospital for more than a year while under guard by correctional officers. He is expected to be returned to the hospital wing of the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre after a recent meeting between Acting National Commissioner of Correctional Services Zack Modise and the area manager of the facility.
“I had a meeting with the area manager of Kgosi Mampuru and concluded, after discussions with him, that Derby-Lewis must come back,” he said.
Commissioner Modise said it seems Derby-Lewis’s doctors were manipulating the system so that their client could be kept in hospital instead of a correctional centre until he is released on parole.
He added that Derby-Lewis’ extended stay at the private hospital was an oversight on the department’s part. Derby-Lewis’s lawyer, Julian Knight, said his client’s release was subject to the permission of his doctors, who may feel that he needs further treatment in hospital.
In granting him medical parole in the Northern Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, Judge Selby Baqwa found that the process followed by Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha at the end of January this year, when Derby-Lewis was refused medical parole, was flawed, as he wasn’t given an opportunity to respond to certain of the statements placed before the minister at the time.
Judge Baqwa ruled that Derby-Lewis be placed on medical parole with immediate effect, but said his release was subject to the parole board determining his parole conditions. He said these conditions must be set by no later than June 5.
In ordering the release, the judge said if he was to refer the matter back to Justice Minister Michael Masutha for his reconsideration, it would prejudice Derby-Lewis.
“His life is already precariously poised,” the judge said. He said he was clearly terminally ill and doctors said his prognosis was poor.
The South African Communist Party has urged Minister Masutha to appeal the High Court decision to grant Clive Derby-Lewis medical parole. The party on Friday expressed disappointment at the judgment, and said it would not rest until the whole truth about the killing of former general secretary Chris Hani was revealed.
Speaking on the sidelines of the SACP central committee meeting in Johannesburg, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said as much as Derby-Lewis had a right to life, so did Chris Hani. “We have opposed parole for the two convicted murderers of our former general secretary. However, we have always argued that a full disclosure should be the unconditional requirement,” said Nzimande.
Nzimande said people should not forget that Derby-Lewis was involved in “an active conspiracy”.
“On the hit list found on Walus there were other names and residential details, including those for Nelson Mandela. “The intention of the conspiracy was to shipwreck the negotiated transition and plunge the country into a racial civil war,” he said.
The Sunday Independent