An EFF member who was assaulted outside the Brackenfell High School in 2020 wants to be compensated for his suffering to the tune of R5 million.
In November 2020 a violent confrontation broke out between a group of parents from the Cape Town school and members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) when the party accused the school of being racist.
The violent confrontation between Luvuyo Ntakana and 40-year-old Jaco Pretorius was caught on camera and the footage went viral on social media.
This resulted in the arrest of Pretorius who was charged with assault.
Pretorius told AlgoaFM News that he was released on warning and for two years the matter was in and out of court.
He said he was advised by his legal team to plead guilty and subsequently got a suspended sentence of six years.
On Thursday, Pretorius was served with a letter from Gardee Godrich Attorneys, on behalf of Ntakana, where an amount of R5 million was demanded for damages.
The letter states that Pretorius infringed on all the human rights of Ntakana, including but not limited to his right to human dignity, right to freedom and security, privacy, belief and opinion, freedom to assembly, protest and petition, freedom of association and his political rights.
"You, Mr Jaco Pretorius, you had an obligation to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of rights of the Consitution of the republic,"
"Your conduct inflicted immense physical pain and violated the bodily integrity of our client. You have shocked the family and the nation. You have traumatised our client and his family defamed his name, rendered his person of less a human being and committed crimen injuria all pursuant to racial prejudices."
"You have committed cardinal misconduct. The country comes from a shameful past, the racial apartheid society where white supremacy akin to Ku Klux Klan would assault Africans, unprovoked as an order of the day taught by parents from childhood," reads the letter.
The amount of R5 million, according to Gardee Godrich Attorneys, is to teach Pretorius and any other person who might contemplate doing the same, a lesson.
Pretorius has 20 days to come up with the money or face further legal action.
Ntakana, a general worker for the EFF aged 43, says Pretorius and Dante van Wyk mistook him for EFF president Julius Malema.
The Eastern Cape-born father says he had been driving EFF supporters to the meeting when a protesting group blocked their path.
He alleges that he had just parked the vehicle and joined the crowd when Pretorius and Van Wyk grabbed his beret.
He says the group hurled insults, including the use of the K-word, before threatening to shoot him.
Pretorius fired a shot in the air and was subsequently arrested.
Asked if he felt the demand for R5 million was fair, Ntakana told AlgoaFM News it was not about the money.
"It is about the constant disrespect that black people are subjected to at the hands of white people," he said.
"I want them to learn that they are wrong and that we are deserving to live freely in this country."
He said his children had also been affected by video.
"My heart broke when I walked into my child in grade 11 watching the video and seeing me in that position.
The whole world associate's me with that video and has made me an easy target - who knows what could happen to me."
At the time, President Cyril Ramaphosa condemned the incident and added that allegations of racism levelled against the school needed to be urgently investigated.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has since cleared the school of any wrongdoing.
