Johannesburg - The controversy over a comment by the youth league leader of South Africa's ruling party that members were prepared to "take up arms and kill" for party leader Jacob Zuma deepened on Saturday.

In comments just a day after Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema to apologise for what he had said, the country's trade federation made a similar pledge, the Sapa news agency reported.

"So yes, because Jacob Zuma is one of us, and he is one of our leaders, for him we are prepared to lay our lives and to shoot and kill," Congress of South African Trade Unions secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi was quoted as having said at a funeral in Johannesburg.

On Monday, Malema sparked an outcry when he told a youth rally: "We are prepared to die for Zuma. We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma."

On Wednesday, the South African Human Rights Committee gave Malema 14 days to retract the remarks, which Malema insists was a mere expression of strong support for Zuma.

The anti-apartheid struggle veteran, who is seen as the most likely to succeed President Thabo Mbeki when he steps down in 2009, rose to the post of ANC president despite having been fired as the country's deputy president amid allegations of corruption in June 2005.

He has since also been accused but acquitted of rape while facing the possibility of fresh corruption charges related to the country's biggest-ever arms acquisition deal that was signed in 1999.

Tutu, reactin to Malema's comments, said on Friday, "I mean when you say you're going to kill, even when you say it's not meant to be taken literally, it's unacceptable.

"I would hope that he would actually end up getting the courage and the magnanimity of saying I made a mistake, sorry." (dpa)