Africa-Press – South-Africa. ANC Western Cape MPL Andile Lili will apply for an urgent interdict on Friday to stop his sentencing after being convicted of incitement to commit murder, and illegal gathering.
This is so he can apply for the case to be reviewed, and ultimately, for it to start again.
Lili was found guilty of incitement to commit murder for comments he made outside the Bellville Regional Court on 28 July 2015.
His comments came after he was sentenced for violating the Aviation Act when he threw faeces inside Cape Town International Airport.
The poo-throwing strategy was initiated by the Ses’Khona People’s Rights Movement and was intended to highlight poor sanitation services in parts of Cape Town.
The protesters would arrive with containers of faeces taken from portaloos, then throw it at key institutions, which included the Western Cape legislature building.
For that, the “poo protester” as he became known, received a sentence of three years, suspended for five years.
In his address outside court, Lili complained about South Africa’s justice system, saying it was biased against the poor.
He said he felt little action was taken against rapists and murderers, and told supporters that murderers and rapists should be killed if people saw them walking in the streets.
Lili was charged with incitement to commit murder for that.
He was also charged for violating the Regulation of Gatherings Act on 12 August 2014 regarding a picket outside the court during the “poo protest” trial.
Video of the August event showed police firing stun grenades to break up the group as they surrounded an armoured vehicle.
In terms of the act, gatherings at courts, Parliament and the Union Buildings are prohibited unless there has been an application to authorities asking for permission, and the permission has been granted.
Lili told News24 after the incitement conviction he had been speaking from a place of extreme anger at the time, and it was in the context of another young woman being brutally raped, then murdered.
He said his remarks were regrettable but should be seen in the context of anger at gender-based violence.
Lili’s sentencing proceedings dragged on after he appointed new lawyers.
He was supposed to be sentenced earlier this year, but his lawyers had not filed heads of argument.
The Bellville magistrate gave his team until 17 March to file their argument and vowed to go ahead with sentencing with or without their submission.
On Thursday afternoon, Lili and his legal team approached the Western Cape High Court to ask for an interdict against Friday’s sentencing.
After a long wait in the corridors, they were told Judge Mark Sher had asked his lawyer to file full papers and to return on Friday morning.
It is not clear yet how this will affect the sentencing, which is due to start at around the same time.
Lili’s political career had been marked by an expulsion by the ANC, then a return to the party.
He is regarded by some residents as a key on-the-ground activist who is in tune with the micro issues of poor communities.
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