Chris Hani’s killer Janusz Walus will stay behind bars for now after his bid for freedom was denied in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.

Walus brought an application last week to be released on parole pending appeal proceedings against his release by Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha.

Last month‚ Pretoria High Court Judge Nicolene Janse van Nieuwenhuizen ordered that Walus be released on parole but Masutha launched a bid to appeal her decision.

After Janse van Nieuwenhuizen refused Masutha leave to appeal against her judgment‚ the minister indicated he would petition the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) for the right to fight her judgment in that court.

This meant Walus would have to stay in prison pending the appeal.

But last week Walus applied for the enforcement of Janse van Nieuwenhuizen’s order pending the minister’s appeal proceedings.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) and Hani’s widow Limpho Hani opposed his application.

Walus‚ 63‚ was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murder of Hani‚ who was the secretary-general of the SACP‚ a member of the ANC’s national executive committee and leader of its armed wing uMkhonto we Sizwe.

Walus’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after the Constitutional Court declared in 1995 that capital punishment was inconsistent with the Constitution.