South African firefighters fought forty-eight before completely controlling the fire that ravaged the premises where the National Assembly meets.
The man suspected of being at the origin of the fire which ravaged the South African Parliament on January 2 in Cape Town was accused on Tuesday January 11 of “terrorismand should undergo a thorough psychiatric evaluation after an initial diagnosis of schizophrenia.
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Zandile Christmas Mafe, 49, shaved head and sober black jacket, stared at the cameras present at the Cape Town Criminal Court for a long time. Eyebrow raised, face closed, he slowly turned around to show himself from all angles. Presented as homeless, Zandile Christmas Mafe had been arrested on the morning of January 2, a few hours after the start of the fire, in the precincts of Parliament. He was charged three days later in a brief appearance.
“Free Mafe!”, “He is innocent!”
The man was already accused of having broken into the huge building located in the center of Cape Town, of having “set fire to parliament buildings» and to have stolen «laptops, dishes and documents“. He is now also being prosecuted for terrorism, the prosecution said on Tuesday, because he “detonated a device in parliament“, according to the spokesman of the parquet floor Eric Ntabazalila, who did not specify of what nature. This charge was added the day before the hearing, after the investigators viewed videos shot by surveillance cameras, the prosecution explained, without detailing either what they saw there.
Since his arrest, many voices have been raised to point out that he was only a scapegoat, while the breaches of security and fire-fighting systems were to be blamed. “Free Mafe!», «He is innocent!Displayed about thirty demonstrators who came to the Cape Town court on Tuesday at the opening of the hearing. A homeless man was among them to tell his version of the fire this Sunday, January 2 at dawn. He claims that he was sleeping in a street alongside the building and that he heard something like a collision. He claims to have then understood that it was a break-in, before the fire broke out in the building.
A hunger strike
Defense lawyer Dali Mpofu, a tenor at the bar who represents the accused pro bono, said in court that Mafe was examined on January 3 and diagnosed “paranoid schizophrenic“. And that his client planned to go on a hunger strike if he remained incarcerated. “He does not understand why the government, which gave him nothing to eat when he was poor outside, now wants to feed himin jail, he told the court. Me Mpofu, well known in South Africa in particular for having defended ex-president Jacob Zuma, insisted that his client’s conditional release be examined.
The prosecution countered that it would be a “waste of time», Claiming 30 days of observation to assess the psychological state of the accused. The judge decided in this direction, affirming to have the “hands tied“: how to examine his fate without even knowing if he will be “fit to stand trial“. Zandile Christmas Mafe shook her head for a long time in disapproval, removing her mask to insist in front of the cameras.
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According to the first elements of the investigation communicated by the authorities, the fire detection system was “defective“. “The sprinkler system did not workit was last overhauled in 2017 and an inspection scheduled for February 2020 was not carried out, according to those reports. Surveillance cameras place Zandile Mafe in the building around 2 a.m. “But security didn’t see him until around 6 a.m., when they looked at the screens, alerted by the smoke.“, had told AFP the Minister of Public Works, Patricia De Lille.
“The cameras worked but no one checked them during that fateful night“, she explained, referring to “a security breach“. The firefighters had fought for more than forty-eight hours before completely controlling the fire which caused no casualties but devastated one of the most emblematic buildings of South African democracy.