The ANC Youth League would not allow former president Thabo Mbeki to be charged with genocide, league president Julius Malema said on Monday.

This comes after Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela said Mbeki and former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had denied many HIV-positive people access to anti-retroviral drugs while they were in government.

Manamela made a call for the two of them to be charged with genocide.

"We must never surrender our leaders," said Malema at a gala dinner of the Pan African Youth Union at Emperor's Palace in Boksburg on Monday evening.

"Thabo Mbeki might have made mistakes but we can never charge him.

"We must not charge one of our own. If we allow that, the same thing would happen to [Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe, and the same would happen to Zuma, and the next thing you know they will come for you," Malema said.