South African opposition politician Julius Malema was back in court on Wednesday, as prosecutors pushed for \u200bhim to be given the maximum 15-year prison sentence for \u200cfiring a rifle in the air at a rally.<\/p>\n
Malema, one of South Africa’s most prominent politicians, was\u00a0convicted last year of charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm \u200band discharging a weapon in a public place over the \u200b2018 incident.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old leader of the fourth-biggest party in parliament, \u2060the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, had pleaded not guilty, arguing the \u200bgun was a toy.<\/p>\n
A prison term of more than 12 months, if \u200bconfirmed after all appeals, would bar Malema from serving as a lawmaker.<\/p>\n
That would be a major setback to EFF, which has strong support among young South Africans frustrated \u200bby the racial inequality that has persisted since the end of \u200bwhite minority rule in 1994.<\/p>\n
MALEMA’S LAWYERS TRY TO KEEP HIM OUT OF JAIL<\/strong><\/p>\n The state \u200cprosecutor \u2060told a magistrate’s court in KuGompo City, formerly East London, that it would set a bad precedent if Malema were to get off without jail time.<\/p>\n “The accused is a political leader with a huge following … young \u200bpeople emulate this \u200bkind of behaviour,” \u2060prosecutor Joel Cesar said. “He’s a member of parliament, a lawmaker, but he breaks the law.”<\/p>\n Malema’s lawyers argued he \u200bdid not intend to cause any harm by firing \u200bthe \u2060gun in a celebratory gesture, and called for a more lenient sentence such as a fine.<\/p>\n The court adjourned to Thursday.<\/p>\n Addressing hundreds of his supporters from \u2060a \u200bpodium set up outside the court building, Malema \u200bsaid he would appeal whatever sentence he was given.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South African opposition politician Julius Malema was back in court on Wednesday, as prosecutors pushed for \u200bhim to be given the maximum 15-year prison sentence for \u200cfiring a rifle in the air at a rally. Malema, one of South Africa’s most prominent politicians, was\u00a0convicted last year of charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm \u200band […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":10,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[2059,1628,122],"class_list":["post-20515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-economic-freedom-fighters-eff","tag-julius-malema","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20516,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20515\/revisions\/20516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}