President of the Economic Freedom Fighters Julius Malema greets the crowd at the party’s final election rally in 2024. Malema was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for firing a gun into the air at a rally. He is appealing. File Photo by Stringer/EPA
April 16 (UPI) — South African politician Julius Malema was sentenced to five years in prison for illegal possession of a firearm and firing a rifle into the air at a political rally.
Malema, 45, fired the gun at the rally in 2018 celebrating the fifth anniversary of the party in KuGompo City, then known as East London. Malema and his lawyers are appealing.
A prison sentence longer than 12 months would disqualify him from parliament. But that would only happen after all his appeals were exhausted.
Defense lawyers argued that Malema was just celebrating and there were no injuries. Malema told the court the gun didn’t belong to him and that he had fired the shots to energize the crowd, SowetanLIVE reported at the time.
But Magistrate Twanet Oliver said during sentencing, “It wasn’t … an impulsive act … It wasn’t anger. It was the event of the evening.”
Prosecutors had pushed for a 15-year sentence.
“The accused is a political leader with a huge following … young people emulate this kind of behavior,” The Guardian reported prosecutor Joel Cesar said during the sentencing arguments. “He’s a member of parliament, a lawmaker, but he breaks the law.”
Malema is the firebrand leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, which is the country’s fourth largest political party. A left-wing politician with a loyal following, he once led the African National Congress’s youth league but was kicked out after a dispute with then President Jacob Zuma. He then formed the EFF.
Hundreds gathered outside the court, backing Malema with chants and singing revolutionary songs, the BBC reported. When they heard he would be allowed to appeal, they started calling out in the Xhosa language “sigoduka naye,” which translates to, “we are leaving with him today.”
The case against Malema stemmed from AfriForum, a right-wing lobbying group that represents Afrikaners. They also criticized him for chanting “Kill The Boer” at rallies and brought another case accusing him of hate speech.
But the court ruled last year that the chant was not hate speech and wasn’t meant to be taken literally. It was from an anti-apartheid song.
After his conviction in October, Malema told those outside the court that “going to prison or death is a badge of honor,” The BBC reported. “We cannot be scared of prison [or] to die for the revolution. Whatever they want to do, they must know we will never retreat.”
In August, Malema was found guilty of hate speech by the equality court for comments he made in 2022 at a rally.
A white man had allegedly assaulted an EFF member. Malema said afterward, “No white man is going to beat me up … you must never be scared to kill. A revolution demands that at some point there must be killing.”
The court said that the comments “demonstrated an intent to incite harm.”
EFF said they were taken out of context.
