AfriForum has admitted that its plans to bring a private prosecution against EFF leader Julius Malema is a strategy to force the NPA to act against him, Times Select reported on Friday.
In an interview with Times Select, AfriForum's Kallie Kriel reportedly said the lobby group wanted to put pressure on the NPA when it announced that it wanted to pursue Malema on Thursday.
On Thursday, at a press conference, AfriForum's advocate Gerrie Nel said that the group would pursue Malema on fraud and corruption charges, according to News24.
Malema was charged for fraud and corruption relating to a Limpopo roads tender awarded to On Point Engineering in 2009. Malema was at the time the sole trustee of the Ratanang Trust which allegedly held shares in On Point.
The case was struck off the roll in August 2015 when Malema's co-accused was repeatedly ill and couldn't come to court.
According to Times Select, AfriForum believes the NPA will act if pressurised.
If you look at the Gupta/Jacob Zuma cases there has been a lot of pressure on them [NPA] to actually be left with no choice but to do that [prosecute].
It seems they are now also going to prosecute Duduzane Zuma – which they didn't want to do before – so we had to exert pressure to say if they don't, we will. That is our role at the moment, to make sure they do their job and if they don't, we will."
On Thursday, Nel told Eyewitness News (EWN) that Malema's co-accused was now healthy, and the NPA should have re-enrolled the matter.
"The senior prosecutor in the NPA, someone from the special commercial crimes unit, was allocated the matter and he indicated the matter was court-ready and that the state was ready to proceed," he reportedly said.
Malema responded with a tweet on Thursday, saying he would not be intimidated by "bloody racists".