JOHANESBURG, S.A. – South Africa’s opposition leader Julius Malema has been found guilty of discharging a firearm in public, seven years after a video showed him firing multiple rounds during a rally.
The incident occurred in 2018 during the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) fifth anniversary celebrations in the Eastern Cape, where Malema was filmed firing between 14 and 15 live rounds into the air before a crowd of about 20,000 supporters.
On Monday, Magistrate Twanet Olivier delivered a three-day judgment, declaring: “You are found guilty as charged.”
Malema had denied the charges, arguing that the weapon was not his and that he fired the shots only to energize the crowd. His co-accused, former bodyguard Adriaan Snyman, was acquitted.
The EFF leader now faces sentencing in January 2026. The unlawful possession and discharge of a firearm carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
This marks Malema’s second conviction in under two months. In August, South Africa’s equality court found him guilty of hate speech after he told supporters: “You must never be scared to kill. A revolution demands that at some point there must be killing.”
The court ruled the remarks were an incitement to violence, though Malema’s party claimed they had been taken out of context.
The firearm case was pursued following a complaint lodged by AfriForum, a lobby group that has long clashed with Malema and the EFF. The organization also played a role in the hate speech case.
Malema, one of South Africa’s most polarizing politicians, has built a reputation for fiery rhetoric in a country still grappling with deep racial and political divides, three decades after the end of apartheid.
The conviction could have major implications for both his political career and the future of the EFF, which he founded in 2013 after being expelled from the ruling African National Congress.
