The Randburg magistrate’s court on Friday postponed EFF leader Julius Malema and his right-hand man Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s assault case to June 3 after a witness failed to take a stand citing ill-health.
Malema and Ndlozi are charged with assaulting Lieutenant-Colonel Johannes Venter during the funeral service of struggle veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at the Fourways Memorial Park, Randburg in 2018.
Both Malema and Ndlozi have pleaded not guilty to the charge. Addressing his followers who had gathered outside the court building, Malema raised concern about the delays in finalising the trial.
“This matter is done, let them do what they want to do with us. We are not going to be doing up and downs here because we touched a white man. We are still going to touch a lot of white men,” said Malema.
To the delight of his supporters, the commander-in-chief of the red berets said the case was the longest trial of assault in history. “We are now four years into a useless trial.”
In his previous address to EFF members at the same court on April 7, the EFF leader said while there is a backlog of cases, the justice system had chosen to victimise him and Ndlozi, stating that the system should be “ashamed that it had kept a mere common assault case” for that long.
“It exposes the incompetency of our courts, it exposes the incompetence of the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority],” he said at the time.
Malema maintained that all he and Ndlozi did during Madikizela-Mandela’s funeral was defend themselves, saying they would retaliate, as they did with Venter, when “confronted by racists”. “The enemy is after us,” he said.
Also read: Malema, Ndlozi common assault case postponed
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