Update: Catzavelos faces the music at Randburg Court

Update 3pm

Sentencing has been adjourned in the court proceedings against Adam Catzavelos in the Randburg Magistrates Court on 13 February.

Shortly after the afternoon adjournment, the EFF’s Gauteng chairperson Mandisa Mashego, who laid the charge of crimen injuria against Catzavelos, was called to the stand.

Answering questions put to her she said, “The use of the k-word and hearing it as an African woman was truly horrible and evoked feelings of anger in me. I do not tolerate this word, as it is meant to dehumanise and belittle.”

She added that racism is still felt by African people every day, and the mere hearing of the word brings back memories of a horrible past.

“The fact that Catzavelos said that he needed help to write an official apology shows that it was insincere. He only did it after charges were laid against him.”

Catzavelos’s defence attorney Lawley Shein asked Mashego if she was aware that Catzavelos was attending community service and had to pay R150 000 fine, and if she felt a long sentence was necessary due to this.

She replied, “Yes I am aware, but I am still appealing to the court to hand a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.”

Shein appealed to the court to consider handing Catzavelos a postponed sentence or impose a fine and suspended sentence.

Sentencing will continue on 28 February.

Initial story 12am

Adam Catzavelos is appearing at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on 13 February as his sentencing is set to resume.

Catzavelos arrived at the court at about 9.30am with a few supporters from the Seth Mazibuko Foundation where he has been doing community service. He and his supporters were met with a high contingency of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters who were against Catzavelos. The EFF’s leader in Gauteng, Mandisa Mashego, brought the case against Catzavelos and she is expected to testify on behalf on the state in aggravation of sentence.

A Randburg Sun reporter at the court said that Catzavelos seems to think this would be his last court case and believed that sentencing would take place today although this is yet to be confirmed.

During sentencing, the prosecutor asked Catzavelos what the thinking was behind the making of the video. Cazavelos replied that he was disgusted with himself, and that he came back from holiday wanting to apologise and face what he had done. “By that time there was a warrant out for my arrest. I felt terrible that I had disrespected the nation,” said Catzavelos. The prosecution further asked why he had not apologised in the same manner as the video, to which he replied that he had not been thinking straight.

Related article: What’s happened since Adam Catzavelos’s racist video rant went viral?

He further stated that the video had been sent to a closed WhatsApp group, and that he hadn’t thought that it would get out into the public sphere. He also said that the words used, were not reflective of the person that he is today, rather the person he was before. “I don’t tolerate that sort of behavior anymore,” claimed Catzavelos. Asked if he thought he was ‘better than a black person’, Catzavelos admitted, “Up until the video, I thought I may have been superior, but in many ways I have changed. I ask that you do not judge me for the person I was before, and rather jusdege me for who I am today.”

He was convicted of crimen injuria, this came after he pleaded guilty to making racist remarks while on a Grecian beach. In a video, that quickly went viral, he was heard praising the apparent lack of black people on the beach.

Sentencing has been adjourned for lunch, and will continue later.