Embattled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema will visit a church in the Eastern Cape on Good Friday, a move which could be seen as the first sign of his defying his temporary suspension from the party.
“In celebrating Easter Friday and commemorating the life of Solomon Mahlangu, president Julius Malema will visit the Twelve Apostles' Church in Christ in Butterworth,” league spokesman Floyd Shivambu said in a statement on Thursday.
Malema was visiting the church in his capacity as league president, Shivambu said.
However, it was not immediately clear whether he would speak in public or not, as he was barred from doing so as per the conditions of his temporary suspension.
ANC spokesman Keith Khoza could not immediately comment.
Easter Friday coincides with the day on which Mahlangu, an Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier, was executed by the apartheid government in 1979 after being accused of murder and terrorism.
Malema was on Wednesday gagged and temporarily suspended by the ANC's national disciplinary committee (NDC), a move which forbids him exercising any duty as an ANC member, president of the ANCYL or member of the Limpopo provincial executive committee.
In return Malema's lawyers sent the NDC an ultimatum about the suspension, which the committee had to respond to by 2pm on Thursday. NDC chairman Derek Hanekom said he could not say what was written in the committee's reply.
Later on Thursday, the league denied reports that Malema had threatened to take the ANC leadership to court if did not withdraw the suspension by 2pm on Thursday.
“We place it on record that no one in the ANCYL will take the ANC to court,” it said, adding that it would react to the latest developments “in the quickest possible time”.
The ANC frowned on its members taking it to court.
Malema's temporary suspension from the party followed comments he made at a centenary lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand last Friday. Malema called ANC President Jacob Zuma a dictator and said he was suppressing the ANCYL.
The ANCYL leader was informed on Wednesday morning of his immediate temporary suspension, and that the NDC would bring disciplinary proceedings against him.
The NDC had instituted special measures because of Malema's repeated behaviour. Malema is appealing his expulsion from the ANC for sowing division in the party and for bringing it into disrepute. The appeals hearing was expected to take place on April 12.
The two disciplinary proceedings are separate. - Sapa