Cape Town – EFF leader Julius Malema said on Thursday the party would be working with the family of slain UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana to file a lawsuit against the SA Post Office (Sapa) and Minister of Communication Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams.
Speaking in Johannesburg, Malema, who called for a "more perpetrator focused justice system", said: "We have assembled a legal team to take legal action on the post office and the minister of communications.
"The killer of Nene was an employee of the post office and it is alleged that he had a criminal record and a history of murder. A responsible government and employer should have known this.
"By employing a person with a criminal record, the minister and the government were assuming the risk of such an incident happening against any member of the public.
"Advocate Ngcukaitobi will be leading the team and contact will be made with the family of Nene soon after the funeral (in the Eastern Cape at the weekend)."
Malema also slated the justice system, saying: "Our criminal justice system is most toothless when it comes to dealing with rape and detecting psychopaths and unearthing violent domestic spaces.
"Women never get any help from the criminal justice system, it is most useless. It is therefore the police and criminal justice system that must take the blame why rape has become a reality of our daily lives."
Ndabeni-Abrahams has already ordered an investigation into how the alleged rapist and murderer of the 19-year-old Mrwetyana was employed by the Clareinch post office in Claremont, despite the 42-year-old suspect reportedly having a previous robbery conviction.
“It has come to my attention that the Sapo employee who allegedly assaulted and murdered Ms Mrwetyana had previous criminal convictions.
"As the shareholder representative of Sapo, I am deeply disturbed by the fact Ms Mrwetyana has met her untimely and gruesome death at the hands of one of our own,” she said in Parliament on Tuesday.
“I would like to assure South Africa at large that as a department, we will leave no stone unturned in the quest to ensure that the family of Ms Mrwetyana finds justice."