WATCH | EFF's Floyd Shivambu 'assaults' journalist outside Parliament

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy president Floyd Shivambu was caught on camera assaulting a journalist on Tuesday.

The incident took place outside Parliament in Cape Town as Adrian de Kock‚ from Media 24‚ was waiting with other journalists outside the building where Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille's disciplinary hearing is taking place.

De Kock saw Shivambu‚ asked if he wanted to comment about the hearing and took pictures of the politician.

Shivambu then insisted that De Kock delete the images because he had not given consent for them to be taken.

He held De Kock by the neck and tried to grab the camera‚ and two unknown men also approached the journalist.

“Leave my stuff alone. Leave my stuff alone‚” the journalist is heard screaming as he was being manhandled.

Shivambu then walked away while one of the men continued to attack De Kock.

“Floyd grabbed my throat saying‚ ‘You don’t have permission’‚” said the visibly shaken journalist.

He later told TimesLIVE he would lay assault charges with police.

In a statement issued by the EFF a few hours later‚ Shivambu admitted to being involved in "a scuffle" but said he did not regard it as an "assault" on De Kock nor on media freedom.

"I regret the incident and believe it should have been handled differently. I take full responsibility and apologise for engaging in a scuffle with a person I discovered after the incident is a journalist. I will write and email an official apology on the scuffle because I believe it was not supposed to happen," Shivambu said.

Note: This article has been updated to reflect Shivambu's comments.