A Johannesburg magistrate handed radical opposition figure Julius Malema a five-year prison term on Thursday after convicting him of illegally discharging an assault rifle during a public gathering nearly a decade earlier.
Magistrate Twanet Olivier ruled that the 45-year-old Economic Freedom Fighters leader had deliberately broken firearm regulations by firing shots into the air at an EFF event in 2018.
“It wasn’t… an impulsive act,” she declared. “It was the event of the evening.”
Olivier went on to state the personal nature of the conviction, telling the court: “It is not a political party who has been convicted here… it is a person, an individual.”
Hundreds of supporters wearing the party’s signature red attire assembled outside the courthouse in a tense, politically charged atmosphere as the sentence was read.
Malema’s legal team argued that the gunfire had been purely celebratory and carried no malicious intent, but the magistrate rejected that explanation.
Prosecutors had pushed for the maximum 15-year jail sentence following Malema’s guilty verdict in October.
His defence lawyers have already signalled plans to lodge an immediate appeal against both the conviction and the punishment.
The small but outspoken EFF party described the entire prosecution as a calculated effort to muzzle its fiery leader, whose impassioned addresses have long galvanised supporters.
Party members have warned of widespread protests if Malema is ultimately imprisoned.
The case was originally brought by the conservative civil-rights group AfriForum, which has repeatedly clashed with Malema over his repeated use at rallies of the anti-apartheid slogan “Kill the Boer”.
The phrase refers to the country’s white Afrikaner farming community.
AfriForum maintains that the chant amounts to hate speech and risks inciting violence against white citizens, a claim that South African courts have consistently dismissed.
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