African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema remained defiant after being publicly rebuked by President Jacob Zuma on Sunday, Etv reported.

Speaking at a press conference at the ANCYL's Limpopo conference on Sunday, Malema said that he would not take any personal responsibility for his remarks made on Zimbabwe last week.

He said that he "can't understand" why he was rebuked on his statements on Zimbabwe, as the views expressed was not his, but those of the ANCYL.

"We [the ANCYL] did not sneak out of the country [to visit Zimbabwe]," he said. "We had the blessings of President Zuma," Malema told SABC news. He also said that he was shocked about the way he was rebuked in public on television by Zuma, the ANC and South African President.

"Even (former) President Thabo Mbeki, when he differed with the Youth League, and the Youth League had taken firm radical positions against him, he never did that," he said.

Zuma said at a news conference in Durban on Saturday that Malema's conduct was "alien to the ANC". Zuma rebuked Malema for his insistence to sing the "shoot the boer" song, his statements about the killing of Eugene Terre'Blanche, leader of the far right Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), and his intervention in the talks on Zimbabwe, as well as his attacks on journalists.

Malema this week interfered with the Zimbabwe peace process, siding with Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF and verbally attacking the Zimbabwean opposition the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC).

Malema said that Zuma had a "right to say whatever he wants to say", and to reign the Youth League in. He said, however, that the ANCYL would engage Zuma within the ANC structures to discuss the issues.

"I still want to know in a meeting what we did wrong," he said.

"I have not done anything to undermine the ANC." He said he was prepared to face any action taken against him.

Malema said that he would not keep quiet on the murder of Terre'Blanche, as he was only defending himself and his family name after being accused of Terre'Blanches murder.

"I can't be accused of Killing Eugene Terre'Blanche and people expect me to keep quiet," he said.

The ANCYL conference was hotly contested on Sunday. Delegates who were forcibly removed from the conference vowed never to recognise newly elected chairperson Frans Moswane, the SABC reported. The delegates, who supported Lehlogonolo Masonga in the elective conference, said that the election of Moswane was not democratic after they were removed from the conference by police on Saturday. They have accused ANCYL president Julius Malema of orchestrating their removal to ensure that his preferred candidates were elected.

"He instructed police to take us out from the conference yesterday. We are going home because we are tired of the agendas of Malema," one delegate told the broadcaster.

"We are tired of the dictatorship of Malema."

Another angry delegate was quoted as saying: "We won't recognise, we don't recognise and we will never recognise this new leader".

Moswane was elected the new chairperson of the Youth League in the province on Saturday. He was due to make his first public address at the closing of the conference in Makhado on Sunday.