South African opposition politician Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of the illegal possession of a gun and firing it in public.<\/p>\n
Malema\u2019s lawyer said he would be appealing against the decision to prevent the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters from being taken away to prison. The length of the sentence could see the 45-year-old being disqualified as an MP.<\/p>\n
Standing in court in a dark suit and red tie, Malema showed little emotion as the magistrate read out the sentence.<\/p>\n
Last year, he was convicted of five offences, including the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, discharging it in a public space and reckless endangerment.<\/p>\n
The charges related to an incident in 2018 when a video emerged showing Malema using a semi-automatic rifle to fire several shots in the air during his party\u2019s fifth anniversary celebrations held in the country\u2019s Eastern Cape province.<\/p>\n
In his defence, Malema told the court the firearm was not his and that he had fired the shots to rouse the crowd, South African news site SowetanLIVE reported at the time.<\/p>\n
After being found guilty last October, Malema told his supporters outside the court in East London that \u201cgoing to prison or death is a badge of honour\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot be scared of prison [or] to die for the revolution. Whatever they want to do, they must know we will never retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also vowed to take a challenge to the judgment up to South Africa\u2019s highest court, the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n
Malema\u2019s prosecution came when Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, which has a contentious relationship with him and the EFF, opened a case against Malema after the video went viral.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African opposition politician Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of the illegal possession of a gun and firing it in public. Malema\u2019s lawyer said he would be appealing against the decision to prevent the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters from being taken away to prison. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}