Malema says he will ‘shoot to kill’ for his family

Speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday evening following the parliamentary debate on accepting the portfolio committee’s report on amending section 25 of the constitution, EFF leader Julius Malema was in a defiant mood.

He started by pointing out that changing the constitution would only be a first step because the EFF remained committed to nationalising all land. He blamed attacks on the EFF on a supposed attempt to ensure the ANC under Cyril Ramaphosa would win with a majority.

Malema particularly took issue with the fact that the address of the home in which his wife and children stayed in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, had been tweeted by a journalist and shared in the media.

He said his wife was now nervous to drive her car and take his child to preschool. He alleged that their safety had been compromised.

A clearly angry Malema told journalists that he still felt his personal safety was at risk. It was reported and confirmed by the police last month that he receives blue-light protection from the state.

Earlier this year, following the EFF’s statement sometime in April that the party was taking allegations of an assassination plot against Malema very seriously, Police Minister Bheki Cele requested the police commissioner, General Khehla Sitole, to investigate the allegations.

The spokesperson of the EFF, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, said the police had independently assessed the situation and concluded, just like the EFF had, that Malema’s life was under threat.

When the red berets first made mention of threats on Malema’s life earlier this year, it said it had been alerted to “nefarious and evil plans to assassinate the commander-in-chief and president of the Economic Freedom Fighters” and they were “not taking the threats lightly”.

This led Malema to have discussions with Cele over the allegations.

Malema said today that he still had his personal bodyguards, but now his wife had told him “strange cars” were parking outside their house, giving him reason to worry about them now too.

He warned anyone thinking of harming his family: “Nobody must come there. When it comes to my wife and kids, I shoot to kill.”

In a tweet yesterday evening, investigative journalist Jacques Pauw agreed to delete a tweet pointing out the Malema home.

Pauw had posted the Google Earth satellite photo of the complex in relation to questions about how it was possible for the EFF leader to have self-confessed cigarette smuggler Adriano Mazzotti, apparently a longtime personal friend, as landlord to his family.

ALSO READ: Jacques Pauw asks questions about Malema’s wife’s Porsche

Pauw said he had not initially considered that there might be any risk to the Malemas of him doing so, since the northern Joburg complex was well guarded and secure, but he accepted the SA National Editors’ Forum’s view that it was wrong, and so he deleted the tweet. Twitter users, however, were quick to point out to Pauw that the damage was supposedly done and that the privacy of Malema’s family could not be restored by him deleting the image.

Mazzotti has a long-standing association with the EFF and paid the R200,0000 registration fee on behalf of the party ahead of the 2014 general elections.

The EFF, and Malema in particular, have in the wake of findings implicating it in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal carried on a campaign of insults and threats against journalists, accusing individual reporters of bias and racism, and urging his supporters to “deal with them decisively”.

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