Johannesburg — CHRIS Hani's murderer Clive Derby-Lewis should not be released on parole because he had shown no remorse or contrition for his actions, the liberation hero's widow, Limpho Hani, said in court papers yesterday.

Derby-Lewis's parole application in the Pretoria High Court was postponed yesterday after Hani applied to join the proceedings.

The National Council for Correctional Services also applied to be joined to the proceedings.

Derby-Lewis was convicted for South African Communist Party leader's murder in 1993, and sentenced to death.

When the death penalty was declared unconstitutional, his sentence was commuted into a life sentence.

He said in his application he was eligible for parole in terms of the Correctional Services Act, which provides that a person jailed for life who is older than 65 may be eligible for parole after serving 15 years. Derby-Lewis is 72.

Derby-Lewis said he had fulfilled parole requirements by attending training courses in prison and being an exemplary prisoner.

"The considerations for parole, as set out in the act, is not of a political nature," he said. His case had been treated like a "political football", he claimed.

Hani said his application should fail because Derby-Lewis did not show that "he has identified the character defect that led him to committing the crime of murder" nor had he "shown contrition or remorse".

She said a proper interpretation of parole requirements required that he "state fully the circumstances that led him to committing the crime of murdering my husband, show an appreciation of the gravity of that crime and show remorse."

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission had found that Derby-Lewis's objective in murdering her husband "was to create a climate of hostility between the black and white citizens, which he hoped would lead to a bloodbath", Hani said.

It would be wrong to release "a person who holds such views into society when he has not placed any evidence that he no longer holds such dangerous beliefs".

A court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case until it was decided by the parole board and a parole review board had decided on any appeal against that decision.

The National Council for Correctional Services applied to intervene, saying that a decision to grant parole had to be taken not by a court but by the justice minister on the council's recommendation.

Derby-Lewis's parole application had not come before the council yet.

The council said that in terms of the act people who like Derby-Lewis were sentenced before October 2004 were entitled to be considered for parole only after 20 years in prison.