Arrest me, challenges Malema

2010-03-09 14:34

Johannesburg - ANC Youth League president Julius Malema says if anyone could prove any wrongdoing against him, they should arrest him.

"I'm not above the law. If there is any crime I have committed I'm asking to be arrested," he told students at the University of Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Malema reiterated previous statements that he has never stolen from the poor and said he would give the R140m reportedly in his bank account to the less fortunate.

"If I have got R140m, take that money and nationalise it," he said, an echo of his calls to nationalise the country's mines.

"I'm giving you the permission to take everything else you find in that account and give it to the poor."

'Onslaught' against ANCYL

Malema said the perceived "onslaught" against the Youth League was not "an ordinary attack". He said he would "never be ambushed," and never be "looted by anybody".

Malema said lifestyle audits were not a concept thought up by Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. It was a practice carried out by the Scorpions and currently by the SA Revenue Services.

"Why should we be subjected to a factional lifestyle audit?"

Malema again charged he was the victim of forces out to get rid of the Youth League.

"It you want to kill a snake... hit it hard on the head, that's what they want to do to me."

Criticism of opposition politicians

Business Day reported that Malema also lashed out at opposition politicians, challenging ID leader Patricia de Lille to "get her facts right".

"Patricia does not look like a married women, but if she is married that man must divorce Patricia and come and get a beautiful woman in the ANC,” Malema reportedly said.

Twitter users also quoted Malema as saying: "Helen Zille, who is suffering from satanism, has gone all out to demolish the churches in the Western Cape."

- SAPA