Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has sued former MP Thembinkosi Rawula to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein for defamation.
The High Court in the Eastern Cape dismissed his defamation case against the former party MP Rawula after suing him for R1 million in November 2019.
“It’s not an EFF initiative, it’s between me and him,” Malema explained.
Rawula had earlier made and subsequently deleted a social media post in which he made scathing allegations against Malema and party deputy president Floyd Shivambu earlier in the year.
Following the ruling, Rawula said on Twitter: “While the defamatory case against me has been dismissed with contempt by PE High Court, I am still studying the judgment.”
Malema had approached the courts following allegations made by Rawula that Malema and Shivambu had taken money from VBS Bank.
Rawula had called Malema and his deputy president Floyd Shivambu “the pair”, and purported that the EFF was like a “financial fishing net” for them, “an antithesis of everything they support”.
He said Malema had admitted in the most recent CCT meeting to taking money from the now liquidated VBS Mutual Bank.
Rawula said on his social media post, “In fact, [Malema] said, ‘sometimes we are forced to kiss dogs or [the] devil to get funding’. The VBS money was done under the full knowledge of the leadership,”
He said his party leaders sidestepped Treasury laws to access money from legislatures and the parliament.
Rawula argued that the “scandal of VBS has put the EFF cardinal pillar number 7 [anti-corruption] on trial in the court of the public opinion. The EFF will have a tough time to remedy itself to the poor grannies of Limpopo and the country as a whole.”
The EFF dismissed his allegations as fabrications driven by Rawula’s inability to make nominations cut to return to the parliament.