After seven years, court is to finally deliver judgment in Julius Malema’s firearm case

“They did not have a case in 2018; they still don’t have a case today,” said Marshall Dlamini, the secretary-general of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), on Monday, 29 September, as the party and its leader, Julius Malema, await judgment in a long-running case around the alleged illegal discharge of a firearm during an EFF celebration.

Dlamini told supporters outside the East London Magistrates’ Court, “The president is resolute. That’s why he’s been telling this woman [the magistrate, Twanet Olivier], say what you want to say because you don’t have a case, and you have wasted our time for the last seven years.”

Malema is charged with the unlawful possession of a firearm‚ unlawful possession of ammunition‚ discharging a firearm in a built-up area or public place, and reckless endangerment of people or property.

His co-accused, the EFF party leader’s former bodyguard Adriaan Snyman, faces two counts: failure to take reasonable precautions to avoid danger to people or property, and providing a firearm/ammunition to a person not allowed to possess it.

Malema and Snyman are alleged to have fired shots from an assault rifle during the party’s fifth birthday celebrations at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane in 2018. Malema claimed the firearm was a “toy gun”.

As News24 reported, lobby group AfriForum lodged the case under the Firearms Control Act.

Daily Maverick reported that the most serious of the charges Malema faces — the illegal possession of a firearm — carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

On Monday, Olivier was expected to conclude the trial, but started with a lengthy explanation of the evidence, touching on submissions by the police and ballistic evidence.

Olivier said explaining the evidence before announcing her ruling would help explain how the court arrived at its decision. At 4pm, she postponed the case until Tuesday.

During the trial, the prosecutor accused Malema of being “evasive, untrustworthy and dishonest”.

Outside the court, Dlamini lashed out at the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and the African National Congress (ANC). He targeted the ANC because it leads the government and the FF+ due to its perceived closeness to AfriForum.

“You have wasted the time of the organisation and you have wasted money of the organisation by coming to this court for useless things,” said Dlamini.

When Olivier ruled against Malema’s application in 2023 for the case to be discharged, he accused her of corruption and incompetence, for which the civil society project Judges Matter condemned him “in the strongest terms”.

Earlier in September, Malema was found guilty of hate speech when he incited violence against a man who was involved in a fight with EFF protesters in Cape Town in 2020. DM