Assaulter and Nelson Mandela Bay ANC councillor Andile Lungisa will fight on.
On Tuesday Lungisa lost his high court appeal against both his conviction and effective two-year prison sentence for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
After the ruling, he indicated to the Dispatch that he intended taking the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein.
The ANC political heavyweight was convicted of smashing a glass water jug on the head of DA councillor Rano Kayser during a heated NMB council meeting in council chambers in October 2016. Kayser was seriously injured.
Lungisa now has seven days within which to hand himself over to serve his sentence or to petition the SCA for special leave to appeal.
Port Elizabeth magistrate Morne Cannon last year sentenced Lungisa to three years’ imprisonment, with one year conditionally suspended for his assault on Kayser.
The entire incident was captured on video by DA councillor Ronaldo Gouws.
Lungisa claimed he had been under attack by Kayser and another DA councillor Johnny Arends, and had simply been defending himself when he struck Kayser.
But, judge Judith Roberson, with judge Feziwe Renqe agreeing, found Lungisa was not a credible witness and his version was not corroborated by the video.
Roberson said he had been evasive and had adjusted his version as he went along.
“His evidence of the alleged attack on him chopped and changed. His allegation that Arends had twisted his arm behind his back was not visible on the video.”
On the other hand, Roberson found that the evidence of the state witnesses had been directly corroborated by the video recording. Witnesses had testified that during the chaos, Lungisa had approached the speaker’s precinct which was not permitted.
Kayser and Arends had approached him to ask him to back off. Arends had tried to reach for the jug in Lungisa’s hand which he felt might be used against the speaker.
At the time objects were being thrown around the chamber. It was at this point that Lungisa had smashed the jug down on Kayser’s temple seriously injuring him.
On the issue of the effective two-year sentence, Roberson said he was a democratically elected councillor with responsibilities to the community he was elected to serve.
She said he had not been provoked nor had he been under threat.
She said while the sentence was a robust one and she might personally have imposed a lesser one, the difference between what she might have imposed and the actual sentence imposed “is not so appreciable that it is a ground for interference”.
Lungisa yesterday told the Dispatch: “We believe that there are serious legal loopholes in the judgment.”
But, Lungisa has a few legal hoops he will have to jump through before getting to Bloemfontein.
Because the matter was decided by two high court judges, his only avenue of appeal is to petition the SCA for special leave to appeal.
It is understood that he will also have to apply to the high court for an extension of his bail pending the outcome of his petition...