This Day in History: October 15, 1993
Additional Date: October 15, 1993
Presiding Judge C.F. Eloff sentenced Polish immigrant and supporter of the Neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), Janusz Waluz, and Conservative Party (CP) politician Clive Derby-Lewis to death for assassinating the South African Communist Party (SACP) leader, Chris Hani . They were found guilty the previous day with Gaye Derby-Lewis, Clive's wife, acquitted. Eloff slammed the two for lack of remorse and their attitude towards the fact that killing Hani was likely to turn the country upside down. The sentence was welcomed by the African National Congress (ANC), and thousands of supporters of both the ANC and SACP. However, a senior ANC official was overheard stating that despite the fact that the two were sentenced to death, an equivalent of death penalty at the time, the organisation was totally opposed to the death penalty. Their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment after the abolition of the death penalty.