Early parole beckons for killers

Court ruling leads to 5000 lifers qualifying for speedy parole hearings

Half the criminals sentenced to life behind bars in South Africa for rape, murder and other violent crimes will be considered for parole after serving less than 14 years in jail.

And 114 lifers have already been released in the last four months, as parole rules for the country's most violent offenders are turned upside down.

Acting on a ruling by the High Court in Pretoria, the Department of Correctional Services has awarded maximum good behaviour credits to 5000 prisoners sentenced to life before October 2004 - irrespective of their conduct in prison.

This means they are now eligible to be considered for parole after serving only 13 years and four months.

But about 4900 inmates jailed for life after October 2004 must serve at least 25 years.

Legal experts said the most vicious killers are likely to be denied parole. But the country's worst serial killer, Moses Sithole, who was jailed in August 1997, now technically qualifies to be considered.

The parole decision follows a ruling last month by Acting Judge Jan Hiemstra, who said life prisoners sentenced before October 2004 were entitled to earn credits to advance their date of parole eligibility, just like other inmates serving lesser sentences. Prisoner Cornelius van Wyk brought the case.

Correctional services spokesman Sonwabo Mbananga said, in an effort to "give quick effect to the ruling", the department granted maximum credits to all 5000 because combing through each file would be too time- and labour-intensive.

Parole boards have been instructed by the department to "prioritise" consideration for the first group of 361 lifers who immediately qualify . This group was sentenced between March 1994 and January 1 1998.

Those who do get released will be a "pilot group" fitted with electronic tagging devices.

Judge Deon van Zyl, the Judge Inspector of Prisons, called on the department to reconsider the policy.

He said parole boards would be swamped and a massive advantage to one group of life prisoners could "create an inequality which may be in breach of the constitutionally protected right to equality".

Frans du Toit, who raped and severely assaulted Alison Botha, author of I have Life, is also eligible for consideration, as is apartheid death squad commander Eugene de Kock.

Botha, who survived the 1994 attack, reacted angrily to the policy this week, saying it was "frightening" and "flies in the face of justice and common sense".

But Mbananga said not everyone would be paroled. "All of them have been given maximum credits because we would have had to go into their files to study beforehand what they did in terms of credits for each and every activity."

The lawyer who won Van Wyk's case, Julian Knight, said the department's blanket award of credits was "an unintended consequence".

Mbananga declined to estimate how many of the 5000 would be released after 13 years and four months. But he said these would be "a continuation" of a separate group of parole assessments in which 114 lifers out of 296 have already been given parole or day parole since April.

The 114 were released after a separate challenge by prisoner Paul van Vuuren and a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

Van Vuuren himself was rejected, along with Chris Hani's killers Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus.

But David Nkuna - convicted for murder in the Free State in 1990 - is already enjoying life in the Mozambican beach town of Praia do Bilene, as one of the 42 set free by the Minister of Correctional Services, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

James Selfe, DA member of the portfolio committee on correctional services, said the rapid Van Vuuren group re-leases suggested that up to 2000 of the 5000 in the Van Wyk group could be released after less than 14 years, "which is less than (Schabir) Shaik's sentence for corruption".

But Mbananga said: "It can't be possible to infer that a substantial number of these 5000 will be released. We are saying the South African public need not be concerned or panic.

"The criteria used in eva-luating an individual for parole, particularly a lifer, are quite stringent."

Another potential beneficiary of the new policy is child rapist Fanwell Khumalo, sentenced in August 2004 for raping 38 girls. In a fluke of scheduling, he avoided the compulsory 25-year term by a month. He can now be considered for parole in 2018.

By contrast, Doreen Stoop, described by a judge as "a tragic figure" and sentenced three months after Sithole, can only be considered for parole in 2030. She was an accomplice who provided insulin in a poison murder.

A Pretoria Central prisoner, speaking on an illegal cellphone, said he was very happy that almost seven years had been slashed from his parole date.

The inmate was given life for murder in 1999, and now qualifies for consideration in December 2012.

He said prisoners had been officially notified to prepare for parole hearings.

"We are very grateful for what Van Wyk and Van Vuuren have done for us," the prisoner said.

Mbasa Mxenge, son of Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge who were murdered by security police in the early 1980s, said the policy was a slap in the face for the families of crime victims.

"It is always the victims who have to sacrifice. Where are the credits for us?" he asked.