ALLEGED Parliament arsonist, Zandile Christmas Mafe said he spent three days in the National Assembly before setting it alight on 2 January 2023.
Mafe appeared in the Western Cape High Court on Friday, 3 November for an inquiry into his fitness to stand trial.
"I spent three days inside Parliament, going up and down, pressing the lift to the last floor, going down, doing whatever and looking at what was there. This is why I saw that the new National Assembly, which was the target, was very beautiful. I asked myself first, should I burn it? But I said to myself, I have a mission. I had no choice but to leave it.
"I enjoyed three days there. After that, I was very tired and very hungry. I went inside there to make food and sleep. At night I then started my mission," he said.
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Among other things, Mafe said he saw travel tickets for Parliamentarians and their pay slips and realised that they "earn too much money".
He said his mission was to burn down the ANC's offices and the National Assembly. But he said all he could remove from the ANC's offices were artefacts and Oliver Tambo books and some of Winnie Mandela, which he believed were important.
"I put those things inside ANC bags and carried them out of Parliament. They were heavy and I was like a soldier or a terrorist the way I was carrying those things.
"I threw them outside so that they do not burn because the fire was coming at me," he said.
Mafe said when cops saw him for the first time, they ran away, but private security guards confronted and arrested him.
