Johannesburg : After describing in detail what happened on the night she says Jacob Zuma raped her, the 31-year-old woman told the high court here that compensation had been offered if she dropped the charge.

She had also been asked if she realised the effect her claim would have on the ANC and was told to deny the allegation to two newspaper reporters.

As his trial got under way yesterday, Zuma told the court he'd had consensual sex with the HIV-positive Aids activist at his home here in November.

He denied raping her and claimed the woman had made similar allegations against other men in the past.

The woman told the court Zuma had invited her to stay over at his house on November 2 after she had received news that a relative had been bitten by a snake in Swaziland.

He told her to sleep in the guest bedroom and told her several times that he would "tuck her in" when he was finished with the day's business.

At one stage he told her to go up to his room so he could tuck her in. She said she had jokingly replied, "What kind of tucking in is it that needs me to come to your room?" and he had laughed.

She went to bed with a book. She was wearing a kanga (a wrap) and demonstrated in court how she had tied it. She was naked underneath, saving her clean underwear for the next day.

She was asleep when Zuma entered her room and offered to tuck her in and massage her.

She told him: "No, umalume (uncle), I'm already asleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

Zuma replied he could massage her while she was sleeping. She said: "No, umalume, I'm already asleep." Zuma then removed the duvet.

"I was lying on my side. He started to massage my shoulders. He then held me on my shoulders and turned me around facing upwards. I felt his knees on both sides of my legs."

Zuma again began massaging her shoulders. "At the same time he was massaging me, I said: 'Eh eh (no), umalume.' "

The woman opened her eyes and saw Zuma was naked. "I immediately closed my eyes and turned my head the other way."

Asked by prosecutor Charin de Beer what she was thinking, she said: "I thought: 'Oh, no! It can't be, he is on top of me, he is naked, I'm in his house.' I thought it can't be happening. (Then) I faced reality. He was about to rape me."

Zuma opened her kanga and forced himself on her. He said: "I told you I'd take care of you, sweetheart. You are a real girl." At some point Zuma "pecked" her on the lips and cheek. When he was done, he got up and left. He had not used a condom, the woman said.

At first she lay on the bed and did nothing. Eventually she gathered her strength, found her kanga and drew it over her.

She sent her sisters an SMS. "I said I am very uncomfortable, umalume is starting to look at me sexually. There must be something in my drawers (underwear). The mothers must not know.

"I couldn't bring myself to say it, or to write in a message what had actually happened."

She finally broke down and told an aunt she had been raped. Over the following days she was examined by a doctor and filed a complaint with police.

Two woman family friends visited her a few days later.

The first said she was concerned about her safety and the second had asked: "Did I realise what it was going to do to the ANC?

That it was going to rip people apart. Could I imagine what this country would be like if (President Thabo) Mbeki or Mbeki's people took over?"

The woman said her witness protection minder, a Superintendent Khan, had told her to tell the Sunday Times and Sunday Tribune "nothing like that had happened".

In a telephone conversation, KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC Zweli Mkhize, a close family friend, told her he had spoken to her mother about compensation if the charge was dropped.

She told him she would continue on the route she had chosen.

Zuma phoned her and said he was aware of the steps she had taken and wanted to talk to her.

She told him she would prefer it if he dealt with her mother and he agreed. He told her he wanted to talk to her mother about the two of them and possibly the rape charge.

On November 15, a lawyer who introduced himself as Yusuf told her he had been sent by Mkhize and advised her to drop the charge.

She told him she would not and he replied: "Umalume will be surprised by this."

She said she felt devastated. "At a time when I need my friends and family most, I have had to go into witness protection and be separated from them."

She told the court that before the alleged rape, the last time she'd had sex was in July 2004.

She said she had known Zuma since she was about five, when her family was in exile. Zuma and her father were close friends and prisoners on Robben Island. After her father died, she considered Zuma a father figure and they stayed in touch.

When she was diagnosed with HIV in April 1999, she told Zuma because, "as a father, it was an important part of my life that he should know about".

He offered to help her find work and finance her studies.

The woman is to be cross-examined today.

With acknowledgement to the Cape Times, Amy Musgrave, Jenni Evans and Sapa.