JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A lawyer for a hitman who killed South African anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani in 1993 says the killer will be released on parole this month.

Lawyer Julian Knight said Thursday that a court ordered parole for Polish immigrant Janusz Walus after legal appeal against the justice ministry's refusal to grant parole.

Walus was sentenced to life in prison for shooting Hani. Clive Derby-Lewis, a conspirator who also got a life sentence, was released on medical parole last year after more than two decades in prison.

Hani was the leader of the South African Communist Party and head of the military wing of the African National Congress, the main anti-apartheid movement that became the ruling party in South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994.