Africa-Press – South-Africa. Zandile Mafe is set to appear in the Western Cape High Court again on Friday to be referred for a psychiatric assessment while he waits out his trial for allegedly burning Parliament down. But will he go to court this time?
Mafe missed three court appearances because he either refused to leave his cell at Pollsmoor Prison or would not get up from the floor of the underground holding cells.
Each time he has issued demands. On one occasion, he said he had to have a kettle, a TV and some reading and writing materials to make prison life more bearable.
He also complained bitterly about how long the case was taking. It was transferred from the lower courts to the High Court in June 2022, which is considered fast.
For Mafe to be referred for the assessment, he has to be present in court. If he refuses to go to court again, the option of doing it at Pollsmoor Prison court has also been suggested.
He has also been on hunger strikes, and, early on in his case, his lawyers got him out of Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital because the referral was irregular.
At that time an initial diagnosis of “paranoid schizophrenia” was made.
The now-suspended Judge President John Hlophe cleared the decks twice to accommodate him on a Saturday in special court sittings.
During his bail application, he spoke almost the entire day, answering questions, telling his life story and sharing his worldview.
Before then, speculation was swirling that he was part of a plot to destabilise the government, and had been trained as an operative in Russia.
His testimony during his bail application presented a less controversial picture.
The court heard that the State has footage of him walking around, allegedly blocking doors, and using documents to form piles of tinder.
He allegedly started the fire sprinkling R10’s worth of petrol bought at a Bellville garage and stored in a cold drink bottle, and then lighting a piece of newspaper, and dropping it into the well of the National Assembly building.
The court knows so far that he hails from Mahikeng, in North West, and travelled around South Africa for work. His last job was at a bakery in Bellville.
Since then, he has been helping people carry their groceries for tips. Sometimes he earned R1 000 a month, and could sleep at home in his shack in Khayelitsha.
He enjoyed watching DStv in his spare time, and budgeted carefully for the lower-tier package he had.
He would find a place to sleep on the pavement in the lean months when he could not get back to Khayelitsha. This state of affairs, where many people find themselves in South Africa, irked him, and he said the government does not care about the poor.
He used his court time to call for a grant for homeless people.
He was open about wanting President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) set for February 2022 cancelled over how the poor are treated, and made it clear he was disillusioned with the ANC and the government.
The SONA was ultimately held at the City Hall after the City of Cape Town extended a helping hand, initially setting off some political bickering. The opposition DA dominates the City of Cape Town’s political structure; in Parliament, it is the ANC. In the aftermath there was even talk of moving Parliament to another province, which would have been a blow for the thousands of people who work there or supply services.
Police said they also found writings on how he admired Afrikaner right-wing extremists such as the late Eugene Terre’Blanche.
Coupled with his views on Ramaphosa, the State felt that this qualifies as a political ideology and warrants a charge of terrorism. His other charges include arson, housebreaking with intent to commit arson, and theft.
Mafe was arrested while the National Assembly was in flames on 2 January, allegedly also in possession of some items taken from offices inside – a laptop, crockery, some documents, a handbag.
He said he would only plead and explain his plea when he goes on trial.
Fallout from the attack on Parliament, includes the discovery that fire safety was inadequate, and nobody spotted the alleged arsonist on the bank of CCTV monitors that form a silent guard when the precinct is empty.
A woman News24 interviewed, who said she knew Mafe from the charity they both fetched food from, called him a quiet man who spent his time writing in hard-backed black and red schoolbooks on the benches in Gardens.
However, she did not find anything out of the ordinary about him. The two would talk in broad strokes about what led to them falling on hard times, but for the most part, would sit in contemplative silence.
After his arrest, he was offered free legal representation by the top team of Luvuyo Godla, Dali Mpofu SC and Nikiwe Nyathi. So far, they have bagged a judgment clarifying the processes required to have a person admitted for psychiatric observation, which should benefit others facing referral in the future.
The State wants to send him for observation again but wants to do it properly this time.
At the last sitting, the defence said that Mafe was open to it but would not set foot in Valkenberg again.
At this appearance, Mafe started shouting that nobody should mention the name Valkenberg and was rushed back downstairs as he became increasingly agitated.
The pre-trial judge, Nathan Erasmus, said that by the time they return on Friday, the defence and the State should have finalised which facility he will go to, and even whether he is allowed to go to a facility in another province, or a private clinic.
The court heard that the waiting list for these assessments is extremely long, and he would be number 113 in a referral system that observes only 10 people a month.
This could impact how long it will take for his trial to start. It is estimated that it would only start in 2024 if he does not jump the queue, pushing someone else out of their place.
The judge also suggested an independent assessment, drawing on the treatment of the man who assassinated Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in 1966 – Dimitri Tsafendas. He said that in that case, the apartheid government considered it inconceivable that anybody would want to murder Verwoerd, dubbed the “architect of apartheid”.
Erasmus said the public was told then that Tsafendas was mentally disturbed after his psychiatric assessment was done in secret, hence the sensitivity over Mafe’s referral.
Tsafendas stayed in Sterkfontein Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Krugersdorp, until his death from pneumonia, in 1999.
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