Suspected parliament arsonist Zandile Mafe returned to the Western Cape High Court on Thursday, where he admitted to having started the fire in January 2022.
Mafe had a dramatic outburst as soon as he was brought into the dock in courtroom 1- before proceedings could start.
He recently underwent a mental evaluation at a facility in the Eastern Cape.
Mafe was arrested shortly after the blaze broke out and is currently being held in the hospital section at Pollsmoor prison.
The 51-year-old shouted that he did intentionally start the fire at parliament.
He also called for Parliament to be moved from Cape Town.
“I intentionally burned the Parliament, me Zandile Christmas Mafe. I will burn it again if it doesn’t move to Bloemfontein or Pretoria”.
The defence has called on the court to ignore Mafe’s utterances.
When proceedings did start, Judge Nathan Erasmus lifted the bar on some parts of the psychiatric report.
“I will not disclose the diagnosis which is his medical condition. The findings were one, that the accused is unable to follow court proceedings as to make a proper defence. Two, at the time of the alleged offence the accused was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act in question and unable to act in accordance with such appreciation of the wrongfulness”.
The case has been postponed until the 10th of August to discuss the contents of the report.
