Pretoria - Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has appeared before the Hawks at their Silverton offices in Pretoria this afternoon and described the charges that the unit want to bring against him as a mockery of the justice system.
The EFF leader had been summoned to the unit’s headquarters to give a statement on an incident that occurred at an EFF rally in the Eastern Cape where he is alleged to have discharged a firearm, with the Hawks indicating that they would be instituting five charges against him for the incident.
Malema, speaking to reporters, said that the Hawks had asked him and his legal team to respond to the charges, a request that they refused to give into stating that “if they want to charge, they must charge and we will speak in court” because they felt that the Hawks were mischievous.
Malema also claimed that Afrikaner rights group AfriForum were behind the charges relating to an assault incident involving a policeman that happened at the funeral of Winnie Madikizela Mandela last year and that the Hawks were afraid to put AfriForum in their place.
“It helps their political agenda (AfriForum) to always bring us to the fore and divert us from the main issues in this country. Let’s deal with the real issues and leave this nonsensical things which are a waste of time for everyone.
“The policeman that they’re talking about is a policeman that tried to stop me from entering the graveside when we were burying Mama Winnie and blocked me. When I came out of the car I said to him ‘chief what are you doing now?’ with the hope that the guy would recognise me but he said ‘no, you're not going to enter here’. A white, big, Afrikaner male, stopping me from burying Winnie Mandela?
“I had to be next to the coffin and no white man was going to stop me from burying Winnie. If that means I must go to prison, let it be! No one, no white man, was going to stop me from burying Winnie Mandela. It was not going to happen,” a visibly incensed Malema said.
As his tirade went he said that if his stance that day was considered as an attack then its should be taken as an attack because he would do everything for Winnie Mandela as he had done while she was alive.
“I wish I did that (assault the policeman in question), I wish I assaulted him. Now that it’s a real issue I wish I did a real thing, proper. I regret not doing it, I should have done it so that I deal with real stuff. Me, I’m not scared, uniform or no uniform, Afrikaner or no Afrikaner, white or pink I deal with you decisively,” Malema ranted.