Clive Derby Lewis was told yesterday afternoon that his bid for medical parole had failed - almost 20 years to the day he murdered South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.
Derby-Lewis and Polish immigrant Janusz Walus were convicted of the 10 April 1993 assassination of Hani. They were sentenced to death but in 1995, the sentences were commuted to life in prison.
Derby-Lewis is now 78 and is suffering from prostate cancer. He was not given reasons as to why his medical parole application, submitted in August, has been refused.
As he has terminal cancer, he qualified for possible release under the new medical parole rules that saw former police commissioner Jackie Selebi released.
Unlike Derby-Lewis, Selebi's parole application was processed in less than two months.
His wife, Gaye, said he had called her yesterday from prison to tell her the news. "We are used to it," she said angrily.
Derby-Lewis has also been refused ordinary parole three times.
Each time the parole services board has recommended he be released. But the then Correctional services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa- Nqakula, who had the final say in releasing him, denied him parole.
"We will try for ordinary parole a fourth time," his wife said yesterday.
The South African Communist Party general secretary Malesela Maleka would not comment.
"We have to focus our attention on the commemoration of Hani's death," he said.
On Wednesday, President Jacob Zuma, the SACP and ANC are to gather at Hani's grave in Boksburg to commemorate two decades since his murder.
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