African National Congress Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has called for an inquest to be opened into the assassination of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani, saying full closure can only be achieved through such an inquiry.
“We reiterated on April 10, 2025, that the inquest on the death of Chris Hani must also be opened as the African National Congress. We believe that it is imperative, that if we are to have full closure to this matter, that such inquest is equally important,” Mbalula said during a media briefing Thursday in Sandton, as he delivered a statement commemorating the slain leader.
His comments follow the announcement earlier this week that inquests into the deaths of Chief Albert Luthuli and Griffiths Mxenge will begin Monday at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
“It is something that we are celebrating as the African National Congress,” Mbalula said.
National Prosecuting Authority regional spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara confirmed that Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi reopened the inquests based on recommendations from the National Director of Public Prosecutions.
“The two inquests will take place concurrently, in different courtrooms, in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, April 14,” Ramkisson-Kara said.
Thursday marked 32 years since Hani was assassinated outside his Boksburg home by Janusz Walusz.
Walusz served 29 years in prison before being released on parole and deported to his native Poland in 2024.
For the first time, the SACP held its annual Chris Hani commemoration outside Gauteng, with the 2025 event taking place in Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape.
The commemoration was historically held in Ekurhuleni, the city where Hani was both assassinated and laid to rest.
The venue change raised questions about a possible shift in relations between the SACP and the Ekurhuleni municipality. Mbalula dismissed these claims.
“Comrade Chris’s life is now being celebrated at Cofimvaba, the home of legends in the Eastern Cape. That is a befitting tribute on April 10, as we remember this canal fighter, commissariat, and chief of staff — that we go to Cofimvaba and unveil a statue in his honour by our government and the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture. It can be no better place than the place of his birth.”
Mbalula said commemorating Hani in Ekurhuleni and Boksburg, where his remains are buried, will continue.
“So there is no shift,” he said.
“This is a remembrance not only for the 10th but daily in the lives of our people and the people of Cofimvaba - to know that among them, in the rural Eastern Cape, a revolution gave birth to a combatant: Chris Sthembisile Hani.”
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