Julius Malema under siege

EFF leader Julius Malema faces numerous challenges, including a potential jail sentence and accusations of getting financial support from controversial figures.

Malema has faced numerous legal and ethical challenges throughout his career, which include being expelled from the ANC.

He has been linked to On-Point Engineering’s tender fraud, where he and associates were accused of syphoning millions from the Limpopo government.

In 2012, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found that the tender was awarded irregularly to On-Point Engineering. Malema’s family trust owned a stake in the company.

The report concluded that Malema’s trust improperly benefited from the proceeds of the corrupt contract.

Malema was charged by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) with fraud, money laundering, and racketeering.

However, in 2015, the case was struck off the roll due to prolonged delays and disagreements among the state’s co-accused.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has also targeted Malema for failing to declare millions of rands in income.

SARS attached several of his assets, including his properties and a smallholding, to recover an outstanding tax debt initially valued at roughly R16 million.

Malema eventually entered into a compromise agreement with SARS to settle his tax liabilities.

The VBS Mutual Bank scandal further tarnished his reputation, with accusations of money laundering and of unlawfully benefiting from the bank’s collapse.

VBS Mutual Bank’s collapse negatively impacted rural communities and depositors, the people whom Malema promises to help.

Firearm case against Julius Malema

In July 2018, Julius Malema fired an automatic weapon at the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) 5th-anniversary rally at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane.

The footage showed Malema receiving a semi-automatic rifle on stage and firing between 14 and 15 shots into the air in front of a crowd.

AfriForum laid criminal charges against Malema in August 2018 at a police station under the Firearms Control Act.

After multiple postponements, the trial officially commenced with the calling of witnesses and presentation of evidence in March 2022.

Malema’s legal team argued that his actions were merely a celebratory gesture using a toy gun firing blank cartridges rather than a real firearm with live ammunition.

The prosecution called 19 witnesses who debunked this version of events and asked for Malema to face punishment for his actions.

Magistrate Twanet Olivier rejected Malema’s toy-gun defence and convicted him on five separate counts under the Firearms Control Act.

These include Unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and discharging a firearm in a built-up area or public place.

He was also found guilty of failure to take reasonable precautions to avoid danger to person or property and reckless endangerment of the public.

On 16 April 2026, Olivier handed down a 5-year effective direct prison sentence to Malema, with fines of R60,000.

Immediately after the sentence was delivered, Malema’s legal team applied for leave to appeal the five-year sentence. The magistrate granted the request.

Because the appeal is pending, Malema was released on a warning and will not go to jail while the matter is being processed.

Julius Malema dossier

In September 2025, AfriForum and Saai compiled a Malema dossier, requesting the international community to take punitive action against Julius Malema.

These two groups argued that Malema was guilty of human rights violations and corruption and supported terrorist organisations.

“Through his ethnically motivated calls for the murder of Afrikaners and farmers, he consistently commits gross human rights violations,” the dossier said.

“These calls are regularly made in front of large crowds, with the chanting of the slogan, ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer’.”

It added that Malema is also facing prima facie corruption cases in addition to his evident human rights violations.

“These cases involve the looting of the state treasury as well as a bank for poor people,” the Afriforum and Saai docket states.

“Malema made numerous public calls for support for terrorist organisations such as Hamas and does not hesitate to make radical anti-Western statements in public.”

They said the situation has been exacerbated by the failure of the state and the courts to hold Malema accountable for his human rights violations and alleged corruption.

“Malema has become more openly radical as a consequence of the reluctance to prosecute him. He believes that he has become untouchable,” they said.

AfriForum and Saai requested that the international community take action to hold Malema accountable for “his gross human rights violations”.

Madlanga Commission of Inquiry

Data presented to the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry included explosive allegations against Malema and a cigarette businessman.

The revelations, which came to light following the extraction of encrypted data from seized devices, centre on a web of leaked WhatsApp messages.

These messages connect Malema, senior Crime Intelligence officer Major General Feroz Khan, and Mohamed Sayed.

Sayed is a senior executive and co-founder of Carnilinx, a manufacturer and worldwide distributor of quality tobacco products.

The core of the allegations is that Malema, Khan, and Sayed used their political, law enforcement, and financial positions to shield one another and target adversaries.

Simultaneously, long-standing allegations regarding Malema’s ties to another prominent cigarette businessman, Adriano Mazzotti, resurfaced in a legal battle.

Malema had brought a R1 million defamation lawsuit against Patriotic Alliance deputy president Kenny Kunene over remarks Kunene made during a podcast interview.

In the podcast, Kunene had claimed, among other things, that Malema lived in Mazzotti’s backroom.

The case collapsed in the Gauteng High Court after Malema’s legal team committed an administrative blunder,

The judge struck the matter from the roll, awarding costs to Kunene, leaving the underlying public assertions legally unresolved.

Malema rejected the backroom narrative but conceded that his wife had rented a property within a small cluster of houses that included Mazzotti’s residence.