DEVELOPING STORY
Magistrate Twanet Olivier on Thursday sentenced South African opposition leader Julius Malema to five years in prison for firing a rifle into the air at a party rally. Malema, 45, leader of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), was convicted last year on charges including unlawful possession of a firearm and discharging a weapon in a public place over the 2018 incident at a stadium in the Eastern Cape.
Malema pleaded not guilty, saying the gun was a toy. His lawyers applied for leave to appeal within minutes of the sentence being read in a court in KuGompo City (formerly East London).
Hundreds of EFF supporters, dressed in the party’s red, gathered outside the court for the politically charged sentencing. The maximum penalty for the offences is 15 years’ imprisonment. A custodial sentence of more than 12 months, if upheld after appeals, would bar Malema from serving as a lawmaker — a major setback for the EFF, which is the fourth-largest party in parliament and draws substantial support from young South Africans frustrated by enduring racial and economic inequalities since the end of white minority rule in 1994.