Sawt Falasteen - South Africa's firebrand Malema handed jail term on gun charges

Hundreds of red-clad supporters of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party leader gathered outside in several centres across the country to follow the sentencing live in the politically charged case.

Magistrate Twanet Olivier said Malema, 45, had deliberately violated firearm laws by shooting a semi-automatic rifle in the air at an EFF rally in 2018.

She allowed Malema to be released on a previous bail and pending an appeal against the sentence with another court.

Malema's defence said the shots were only intended to be celebratory.

"They are trying by all means to silence this voice," Malema told hundreds of supporters outside the court in the city of KuGompo, formerly East London, after he was released. "They will never win."

Accusing the magistrate of racism, he said: "We are fighting the enemy and the enemy is white supremacy."

But Olivier insisted that "the decision to break the law has been made and it was made with the approval of the accused person and the leadership".

Malema "knew that it may cause harm to persons or property", she said.

Police said they fired rubber bullets and irritation smoke to disperse a "commotion" between law enforcement and people following the court proceedings in the northeastern city of Mbombela.

The group had "reportedly started pelting stones on members of the public" and tried to block a major highway, police said.

The state had been seeking the maximum 15-year jail term for Malema, who was found guilty in October.

The EFF -- a small but vocal Marxist-inspired party -- won under 10 percent of the vote in the 2024 general elections and has 39 seats in the 400-seat parliament.

- Highly politicised -

Malema's sentencing was welcomed by the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA), the second largest political party in the country after President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC).

The DA is in a multiparty unity government with the ANC but which excludes the EFF.

The coalition was formed in 2024, three decades after the end of the apartheid era of white-minority rule.

"Gun violence is out of control in South Africa, so any crime involving illegal gunfire is extremely serious. It's important to punish illegal firearm crimes harshly," DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis said.

But senior EFF parliamentarian Carl Niehaus said on X that the sentence was "a travesty of justice, persecution, and only and totally politically motivated".

There were "clear intentions to criminalise a revolutionary political voice that represents the aspirations of the oppressed and marginalised", the party said in a statement.

"The whites want to use our leader as a weapon to show they still have power," EFF councillor Mamotse Molala, 33, said at a gathering of around 300 people in central Johannesburg.

"There are so many people who shoot guns in public and they are not charged," said Katleho Lelolo, 28, who was also at the gathering.

The case against the EFF leader was brought by the small, conservative group AfriForum.

Malema has long been criticised by AfriForum, notably for his use at rallies of an anti-apartheid chant, "Kill the Boer" -- a word that often refers to the country's minority white Afrikaner population.

The far-right group says it is hate speech and incites anti-white violence, an argument rejected by the courts.

The Afrikaner lobby group has brought its long-standing complaints against Malema to the attention of US President Donald Trump.

"But why wouldn't you arrest that man?" Trump asked Ramaphosa, referring to Malema.

The Trump administration has offered refugee status to South Africa's white Afrikaners on the grounds that they face persecution, which is strongly denied by the government.

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST