The assault case involving Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema and the party’s MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi will resume on Wednesday in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court.
The two are accused of assaulting a police officer at the funeral of struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in 2018.
The incident was caught on closed-circuit television cameras.
The state’s third witness Colonel James Bronkhorst was of the officers who investigated the incident.
During the cross-examination by Advocate Laurence Hodes, the legal representative of Malema and Ndlozi, Bronkhorst conceded through an interpreter that almost three years since the incident, the police have still not verified whether the vehicle Malema and Ndlozi were travelling in had been accredited.
“That doubt still remains because nobody’s answered that unequivocally by saying this vehicle was or wasn’t authorised, I’m referring to the time that this happened.”
CCTV footage
State witness in Malema and Ndlozi’s assault case has told the Randburg Magistrate’s Court that he kept a copy of the CCTV footage of the incident for himself.
Deon Klingbiel was the manager of the Fourways Memorial Cemetery in 2018 during the funeral of Madikizela-Mandela.
The pair pleaded not guilty to the charge, and have not taken the stand to give their version of events.
Malema and Ndlozi’s legal representative, Advocate Laurence Hodes, questioned Klingbiel through an interpreter on why he did not mention in all his three statements to the police, that he made a copy for himself.
“So, you decide you are going to leave that fact out of your statement. But you have the secret little copy at home that you didn’t want to share with anybody else.”
Malema and Ndlozi in court on assault charges:
