Jacob Zuma has described the circumstances in which he was fired by President Thabo Mbeki and how the president could have "saved" him but has not yet done so.

In his 97-page affidavit to the Pietermaritzburg High Court yesterday, as part of his application to have the charges "permanently stayed", or struck off, Zuma laid out in detail how he had come to be charged with corruption and fraud.

Zuma said he had welcomed and supported an investigation into the multbillion arms deal, even though he "indeed had had nothing to do with the arms deal".

He said it was actually Mbeki who had been intimately involved with the arms deal.

Zuma said while he would argue that the president had had nothing to do with improprieties in the arms deal, what Mbeki's involvement would enable him to do was depose to the fact that there had been no corruption on anyone's part.

Zuma said that on June 6, 2005, the president had asked him to resign "in the light of" the Schabir Shaik judgment.

This request, said Zuma, was "hard to justify on any legal basis" since he had not been charged in the Shaik trial and the national Directorate of Public Prosecutions had earlier stated that a decision had been taken not to charge Zuma.

Moreover, said Zuma, he had been asked to resign by the president before he was charged on June 20.

Zuma said the only reason the president could have asked him to resign was because the State must have obtained "new" evidence demonstrating his guilt.

Yet, said Zuma, he had never been asked to comment on the alleged new evidence.

Zuma said he assumed that the then new national director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli, had briefed the president during a trip to Chile in early June 2005, and this was the reason the president had asked him to resign.

"I challenge Mr Pikoli to reveal the new evidence which caused him to change his mind prior to the visit to Chile and whether he informed the president of that (evidence)," said Zuma in the affidavit.

Zuma said that as a result of being fired, he had lost the deputy presidency and other employment opportunities.

"My future political career and my eligibility as a candidate for the presidency have been severely affected."

Zuma also discussed the issue of a letter addressed to Gavin Woods, then chairman of the Parliamentary Standing committee on Public Accounts, in which it was stated that there was no need for the Heath Unit to investigate the arms deal.

It is alleged that in return for a bribe, Zuma gave French Arms Company Thint "protection" against a probe into the deal. Zuma said the letter had not been drafted by him but had come from the president's office with instructions that he sign it.

Zuma said he had spoken to Mbeki about the fact that the court had been misinformed about the source of the letter. "He agreed with me and undertook to put things straight," said Zuma.

With acknowledgement to Cape Argus.