The woman at the centre of the Jacob Zuma rape charge went into the witness box in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday morning.

Earlier, Zuma, 63, had pleaded not guilty to raping her at his Johannesburg home on November 2 last year.

The small number of supporters and reporters allowed to attend the in camera hearing watched her closely as she was led into the court by a policeman.

With her head shaved, the 31-year-old wore a blue Kangol jacket and khaki trousers and sat with her hands on her lap in the witness box. Presiding Judge Willem van der Merwe gently asked her to speak louder so that he and the entire court could hear "every word".

State prosecutor Charin de Beer asked her if she saw the man who had raped her was in court.

She replied: "Yes, I do."

De Beer said: "Who is he?"

"He is Jacob Zuma," she replied.

It is against the law to name a rape victim, unless she gives consent.

Responding to questions from de Beer, the complainant said she had known Zuma since she was five. "I remember him as one of the very friendly uncles who always used to play around with us and talk to us," she said of her childhood memories when her family was in exile in Swaziland.

Zuma and her father were very close friends and had known each other since they were about 20 years old. They were together as youth in the African National Congress, were in exile together and served time as political prisoners on Robben Island.

When her father died in 1985, she was devastated and tried to retain ties with close family. "One of them was umalume (uncle) Zuma. "I found that I liked being around him," she said, recalling how he used to tell them stories about their youth and about her father.

She returned to South Africa in December 1990 and remained in touch with Zuma. She explained that she was a wellness co-ordinator and Aids-activist and focused on issues of health, HIV and sexuality. She told the court that she first learnt that she was HIV-positive in 1999 and had told Zuma about this at the time as she thought it was something he should know.

On hearing the news, Zuma said she was very brave to be living with HIV. "I told him because I thought that as a father, it was an important part of my life that he should know about." She said over the next few years Zuma had said he would help her find a job and offered to support her with her studies. She wanted to study homeopathic medicine and successfully applied for a training course in Australia.

Zuma however was not keen for her to go there because she would be too far away and would have no support. Zuma encouraged her to apply for a course in the United Kingdom and said he would phone around to help with funding.

At the end of July 2005, she was accepted for the UK course but by the September cut-off date she had not paid for it yet. She kept been visiting Zuma, whom she repeatedly called umalume.

In August, she went to visit him and he asked her if she had a boyfriend. She joked that all the good ones were taken and said: "No, umalume, you are not getting lobola anytime soon". She said this because she would have been at the forefront of any lobola negotiations for her.

When she heard that he was no longer deputy president, she sent him a message of support, saying that she loved him and her and the other children who had been in exile with him, invited him to lunch.

Later in September, she discovered that her CD4 count (an indication of the stage of HIV) had fallen drastically. She told Zuma at that stage that she was missing her mother and he arranged for and air ticket to go and see her.

The trial continues. 

 With acknowledgement to Jenni Evans and Sapa.