Co-accused and Ses'khona co-founder Loyiso Nkohla said they would appeal their sentences.
Andile Lili and eight other Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement members were sentenced to three years in jail, suspended for five years, and community service in the Bellville regional court on Wednesday.
The nine men were found guilty of contravening the Civil Aviation Act after they dumped buckets of human faeces at Cape Town International Airport in August 2013.
Their sentences include a requirement to do community service for the duration of their sentence, including cleaning cemeteries for some and taking mops and buckets through their local police station for others.
Speaking to hundreds of supporters outside the court after the sentencing, Lili said he would appeal the sentence as it was not a victory for them, even though it had brought relief to some members. “Why must we clean cemeteries?”
Co-accused and Ses’khona co-founder Loyiso Nkohla said they would appeal their sentences. “We have always maintained our innocence.”
ANC Western Cape chairperson Marius Fransman supported the group in court.
Democratic Alliance Western Cape leader Patricia de Lille used the opportunity to tell people in the province not to vote for the ANC as it meant voting for Ses’khona.
“I want to assure Andie Lili, Loyiso Nkohla and all their supporters that there is truly no place for predatory politics in the Western Cape. It is the kind of politics that not only feeds off human suffering but also creates it.
“Ses’khona is a group of people who work from within the ANC leadership, and includes a number of ANC councillors and aspirant ANC councillors. Western Cape residents should know that a vote for the ANC in the Western Cape is a vote for Ses’khona.”
De Lille said voting for the ANC was a vote for an organisation that organised and executed several faeces-throwing incidents in the city, at the Cape Town airport and elsewhere, organised disruptive protests on the N2 highway and intimidated citizens.