Janusz Waluś
Polish convicted murderer (born 1953)
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Key Takeaways
- He held dual Polish and South African citizenship from 1986 until his South African citizenship was revoked in 2017.
- Waluś was refused parole four times, before the Constitutional Court ordered his release on parole in November 2022.
- In 2024, he returned to Poland.
- He passed matura in August Witkowski 5th High School in Kraków.
- After the family business went bankrupt some years later, Waluś, then a truck driver, joined both the National Party and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, becoming more and more involved in the far-right politics supporting South Africa's apartheid government.
Janusz Jakub Waluś ( YAH-nəs WOL-əs, Polish: [ˈjanuʂ ˈjakub ˈvaluɕ]; born 14 January 1953) is a Polish right-wing extremist who was convicted of the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and chief of staff of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). He held dual Polish and South African citizenship from 1986 until his South African citizenship was revoked in 2017.
Initially sentenced to death for Hani's murder, Waluś's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after capital punishment in South Africa was ruled unconstitutional in 1995, and he was held at C-Max in Pretoria. Waluś was refused parole four times, before the Constitutional Court ordered his release on parole in November 2022. His parole was delayed for nearly a week after he was attacked in prison, and he was released on 7 December 2022. In 2024, he returned to Poland.
Early life
Waluś was born in Zakopane in the Polish People's Republic. He passed matura in August Witkowski 5th High School in Kraków. In 1981, he emigrated to South Africa to join his father and brother, who had arrived in South Africa in the 1970s and established a small glass factory. After the family business went bankrupt some years later, Waluś, then a truck driver, joined both the National Party and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, becoming more and more involved in the far-right politics supporting South Africa's apartheid government.
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