Malema sentencing postponed to Thursday

The sentencing of EFF leader Julius Malema for discharging a firearm in public has been postponed to Thursday morning in the East London Magistrate’s Court. Malema’s sentencing was scheduled for Wednesday, but after arguments from both the State and the defence, the presiding officer, Magistrate Twanet Olivier, said she needed more time to draft the sentence. During Wednesday’s proceedings, the State insisted that EFF leader Julius Malema should get a prison sentence for discharging a firearm in the midst of a large crowd gathered for an EFF rally in East London‘s Mdantsane township in 2018.

State prosecutor Advocate Joel Cesar told the court that as an MP and party leader, Malema by behaving in the manner he did, set a bad precedent, particularly for young people and his followers. “The accused has a huge following. Young people will emulate this type of behaviour.

He has created an impression that this kind of behaviour is acceptable.” He is a lawmaker, yet he is the one who broke the law. “His intention was clear: he was going to do whatever he wanted to do irrespective of the danger such conduct posed to people,” he said. For discharging a firearm and putting the lives of the about 20 000 people who were gathered for the EFF event, Cesar said, Malema deserved a prison sentence of between seven and fifteen years.

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The case stems from a 2018 incident where Malema, during an EFF event in East London, fired the gun of a bodyguard into the air. Earlier on Wednesday, Malema’s lawyer, Advocate Laurance Hodes, told the East London Magistrate’s Court that imposing a jail sentence on him for possessing and discharging a firearm for “celebratory purposes” would be contrary to the law.

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