A South African court on Thursday sentenced Julius Malema, the fiery leader of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, to five years in prison for illegally firing an assault rifle into the air at a 2018 rally.
The politically charged case drew hundreds of red-shirted EFF supporters to the Polokwane court, where Magistrate Twanet Olivier ruled that the 45-year-old Malema’s actions were deliberate, not impulsive.
“It was the event of the evening,” she said, rejecting defense claims that the shots were merely celebratory.
Prosecutors had sought the maximum 15-year term after Malema’s October conviction on firearms violations.
His legal team plans to appeal, while the EFF decries the verdict as a bid to muzzle its outspoken chief, whose rhetoric often targets land expropriation and economic inequality.
The complaint originated with AfriForum, a conservative Afrikaner advocacy group that has repeatedly challenged Malema, including over his rally chants of “Kill the Boer”—deemed hate speech by critics but upheld by courts as protected political expression.
Malema, once expelled from the African National Congress’s youth wing, has built the EFF into a vocal minority force pushing leftist policies amid South Africa’s economic woes.
Supporters have vowed protests if the sentence stands; the magistrate emphasized that “it is a person, an individual” on trial, not the party.
