A South African magistrate judge on Thursday slapped opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema with five years in the joint for a 2018 incident in which he got a little excited at a rally in the East Cape Province and fired a rifle into the air on stage, leading to the eight-year court battle that ended in his conviction on charges including unlawful possession of a firearm and discharging a weapon in a public place and now the fairly stiff sentence, Sky News reports.
“We hear daily, or weekly, of children playing in the front yards, in the street, who are caught in crossfire, random shots fired, killing people. It’s just the first time that we hear, it’s being called celebratory shots,” Magistrate Twanet Olivie told the 45 year-old, who was just reenacting the famous Congressional address scene from Idiocracy in which US President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho fired a fully automatic M249 SAW Para into the ceiling to quiet rabble.
The five year bid, if it survives appeal, also comes with a lifetime ban from office for Malema.