Publication: Sunday Tribune Issued: Date: 2005-10-09 Reporter: Santosh Beharie

Zuma was in the Bath when Scorpions Arrived

 

Publication 

Sunday Tribune
Date

2005-10-09

Reporter

 Santosh Beharie

Web link

 

Sacked deputy president Jacob Zuma and his family were left traumatised during the early-morning search and seizure operation conducted by the Scorpions at his Johannesburg home.

This emerged in an affidavit attached to papers filed at the Durban High Court by Zuma to have the August operation declared illegal.

Recalling the events leading up to the raid on his plush Forest Town home, Zuma said he and his wife, Thindile, were both in the bathroom when they heard the doorbell ring at 6am on August 18.

"My wife and I were getting ready for work. Neither my wife nor I were in a position to go to the door immediately.

"After a few rings, my brother, Duduzani, went to ascertain who was at the door. When he peered through the peephole, he saw persons dressed in black. All of them appeared to be armed, and he heard them talking about breaking the door down because there was no response to the doorbell. Duduzani opened the door to approximately 10 members of the Scorpions, who entered the flat," said Zuma.

He said his brother had come to his bedroom to call him, but he was still in the bath at that stage.

"Duduzani even tried to call me on my cellphone. Soon thereafter, I opened the door and found Duduzani accompanied by a member of the Scorpions, whose name I later ascertained to be one Dale. He stated that he had a warrant to search the flat. At this stage, I also just had a towel around me and informed him that I had to get dressed.

"While I dressed and made ready, the search party waited for me in the reception area of the flat. When I came down to the reception area, I ascertained that the person in charge of the search party was one Bruce Bok, who introduced himself to me and read out the search warrant in the lounge. Bok also showed me a copy of the warrant.

"He did not advise me of any of my rights and demanded that I sign an acknowledgement of receipt for the warrant. Before the warrant was read out, Dale requested that we all hand over our cellphones... It was not clear why," said Zuma.

"The surprise and trauma were exacerbated by the hour, the armed state of the searchers and the general unavailability of advice as to how to react *1," he said. "I record that the event was especially traumatising for my sister, Phumzile, who is 18 and suffers from a mental condition under which she is intellectually challenged," he said.

Zuma said, however, that the search itself was executed in a generally orderly fashion. "The search ended at 10am. I do not know why it was necessary for the search party to endeavour to seek entry to the flat as early as 6am.

"One of the items removed during the search was a diary of the South African Breweries, which belonged to my late mother and had the name 'J Zuma' inscribed on it," he said.

In court papers, Zuma also slammed the search by the Scorpions as a ploy to "harass and embark on a fishing expedition through literally mountains of documents, the vast majority of which could have no relevance to the matters under investigation".

"It also enabled them insight into every aspect of my private life when this was essentially not necessary," he said.

Zuma said he was also surprised to see members of the media outside his home after being "assured" that they would not be present. "The only conclusion to be drawn is that the respondents informed the media *2 of the intended search with a view to ensuring that it was well publicised."

"There was nothing that they did not open... no place in which they did not search," said Zuma.

With acknowledgements to Santosh Beharie and the Sunday Tribune.


*1 Meanwhile it was none other than Mo Shaik who tipped off the media.

*2 Generally, one the reactions that is not preferred by the searchers and seizers is how to quickly dispose of the very material they came to search and seize: like putting CDs through the shredder, on the fire escape, drawing a large magnet across the magnetic disks and diskettes, popping the USB Flash RAM devices into generally inaccessible orifi or whacking the dismount hotkey for the PGP virtual disk.*3

*3 Not to worry: these anti-search maneouvres are only the trite and intuitive ones which can be learnt online at the Joseph Stalin School of Counter-Counter-Counter-Counter Intelligence (JSēCēCēI).

*4 If you were Alain Peter Thetard of Thomson-CSF Southern Africa and never passed the stringent qualifications of the JSēCēCēI and couldn't get to one of the ubiquitous shredders in time, despite these being more common in their offices than PCs, then you could simply shove the incriminating stack of files of encrypted faxes through the trap door into the ceiling cavity. But beware the under-remunerated executive secretary lurking about.