South Africa’s best-known radical opposition figure, Julius Malema, has been sentenced to five years in prison after a court found him guilty of illegally discharging a firearm at a political rally nearly a decade ago.
On Thursday, magistrate Twanet Olivier delivered the ruling, concluding that Malema fired an assault rifle into the air during an Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) celebration in 2018, an act the court said amounted to a deliberate breach of the country’s firearm laws.
As the court prepared to announce the sentence, hundreds of supporters in the EFF’s signature red poured into the streets outside, turning the proceedings into one of South Africa’s most volatile and watched political trials—with supporters portraying the case as politically motivated, while prosecutors argued it was a serious criminal violation.
The sentence marks a major setback for Malema, a figure who has long kept a firm grip on South Africa’s political pulse and whose every legal appearance has drawn intense public attention.
