EFF leader Julius Malema photographed after a police officer stopped his vehicle from entering the Fourways Memorial Park, where Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was being buried on April 14 2018. File image
Image: Masi Losi
EFF leader Julius Malema and MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi were found not guilty of assault on a police officer by the Randburg magistrate’s court on Thursday.
Magistrate Leiland Poonsamy found discrepancies in the state’s case while the “evidence in its totality confirms the version” of Malema and Ndlozi, who he said had not contradicted themselves when testifying in the trial.
Lt-Col Johannes Jacobus Venter had alleged he was accosted by the pair at the funeral for ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in April 2018.
Venter was responsible for protecting the president, former presidents and ministers at the Fourways Memorial Park cemetery.
He testified in October 2020 that they were instructed to only allow immediate family members and the president at the cemetery. They were told the rest of the mourners would remain at the stadium, where funeral proceedings would be streamed via satellite TV.
He said he did not see a permit on Malema’s vehicle and told him their vehicle could not enter. Malema and Ndlozi pushed past him and drove into the cemetery.
Ndlozi, when he took the stand in July, said: “We were denied our freedom to move or to access the cemetery. We were denied the dignity to mourn someone we had a relationship with. It was a fundamental humiliation.”
In June, Malema told the court: “It was a very difficult day, a very emotional day. I came into politics when I was very young and I was raised by people like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. I was very close to her and I couldn’t imagine I was going to be stopped from burying her.”
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