President Thabo Mbeki did not exonerate his deputy, Jacob Zuma, in a meeting with religious leaders earlier this week, Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said on Thursday.

"It is not the responsibility of the president to exonerate anybody. That is a matter for the courts," he told reporters in Pretoria.

There have been allegations that Zuma accepted a R500 000-a-year bribe from a bidder in the country's multi-billion rand arms deal. National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka has decided against charging Zuma, saying that while there was prima facie evidence, the case was "not winnable".

On Tuesday, Mbeki attended a meeting of his presidential working group of religious leaders.

Afterwards, National Religious Leaders Forum chairman Ashwin Trikamjee, flanked by Director-General in the Presidency Frank Chikane, told reporters Mbeki had informed them that no evidence had been found linking Zuma to any wrongdoing.

According to Trikamjee, Mbeki also said it would have been impossible for any one person, including Zuma, to have affected the outcome of the process or to have been influenced by a bribe.

Last month Zuma asked the Pretoria High Court to order the prosecuting authorities to give him the original of an encrypted fax that allegedly implicates him in the bribery.

The application was turned down because it was not deemed as urgent.

On Thursday, Pahad said it still had to be determined whether such a fax indeed existed. If it did, it had to be established whether Zuma was really the one who sent it.

He was not a lawyer, but he knew corroborating evidence was needed to prove that, Pahad said.

"It is impossible to say what the judge might eventually arrive at."

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Independent Online.