Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2006-07-23 Reporter: Jeremy Gordin Reporter:

Zuma Trial Defence Team to Contest Delay

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent
Date

2006-07-23

Reporter

Jeremy Gordin

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

Lawyers for ANC deputy president and Thint will this week argue vigorously against postponement

Jacob Zuma, the deputy president of the ANC, and Thint, the French arms manufacturer, will not formally reply until Friday to the state's request that the Zuma/Thint trial be adjourned - but it is understood that the defence intends to make a meal of the apparent "vagueness" of a crucial issue in the state's papers.

In the state's notice of intention to apply for an adjournment, which was filed in the high court of the Natal provincial division this week, the state requested that the trial of Zuma on charges of corruption and fraud and Thint on charges of corruption not be held, as scheduled, on July 31, but "be adjourned to a date in 2007".

However, in the affidavit by Johan Du Plooy, a senior special investigator of the Scorpions, which is the meat of the application, Du Plooy states he "is advised" that a suitable date for the commencement of the trial would be in "the first half of 2007".

In the letter sent on June 26 by Anton Steynberg, deputy director of public prosecutions in KwaZulu-Natal, to Zuma's and Thint's attorneys, Steynberg said the state would apply for an adjournment until February 2007.

In Du Plooy's affidavit, however, he says that a trial date of "February 2007" would, "as things stand", appear to be "optimistic".

"You don't need a doctorate in law to see that there is apparently some uncertainty in the state's ranks *1," said a legal expert *2 this week.

"'A date in 2007' could apply to any date before the end of 2007. And 'the first half of 2007' is not February. So when exactly does the state want to hold this trial? Does it have any idea? The defence teams are likely to pick up on this vagueness - and to ask those very questions."

He said the defence teams (Zuma's led by Kemp J Kemp, SC, Thint's by Kessie Naidu, SC) were also likely to jump on Du Plooy's comment in the papers that: "The corruption of a government minister, let alone the deputy president of the country, is in itself a matter of the utmost gravity… I believe it can be stated without hyperbole that this is possibly one of the most serious and significant cases in the history of our democracy."

"I think," said the expert, "that the defence is likely to agree whole-heartedly with those sentiments - and then ask the trial judge why, if that is the case, the state is not getting on with it?" *3

In the 65-page argument for an adjournment, Du Plooy listed a number of factors that had prevented the NPA from being able to complete its investigations and to deliver a final indictment.

Du Plooy said that in August 2005 the investigation into Zuma had been "extended" to include the possibility that he committed fraud in connection with declarations he made to the Registrar of Parliamentary Members' Interests and to the SA Revenue Service.

Further investigation was required into whether Zuma had received "significant funding" from a businessman named Jurgen Kogl and his company Cay Nominees, from Nora Fakude-Nkuna and her company Bohlabela Wheels and from KZN businessman Vivian Reddy.

Du Plooy said that in the Shaik matter, the forensic report had been 250 pages long and been supported by supplementary reports and 20 lever-arch files. "It is expected," Du Plooy said, "that the report in the present matter will be even longer, and the exhibit files even more voluminous."

Other reasons given by Du Plooy for a delay in the trial included:

The applications brought by Zuma, Michael Hulley, Zuma's attorney, Julekha Mahomed, a former Zuma attorney, and Thint contesting the validity of the search warrants used for search and seizure raids in August last year. The courts upheld the applications by Zuma, Hulley, and Mahomed, but turned down the Thint application. The Scorpions are thus appealing against the former matters and Thint is appealing its matter. All these appeals will take time - but until they are completed, the Scorpions do not know whether they can "use" the material seized in the raids.

The appeal of Schabir Shaik against his term of 15 years' imprisonment for corruption and fraud is due to be heard by the supreme court of appeal on August 21. Du Plooy argued that not only would this matter distract the prosecution in the scheduled trial, but that many of the matters on which the supreme court of appeal would make a judgment might have a bearing in the Zuma/Thint trial.

The state had applied for certain documents related to Thint to be released by the Mauritian authorities. But Thint's defence team contested the release of these documents on the basis that their release could be decided only by the Zuma/Thint trial judge.

"It is common cause," Du Plooy wrote, 'that the honourable judge president [of KZN] has declined to announce the trial judge prior to the trial date of July 31." This, said Du Plooy, was another reason for the state's inability to proceed on July 31.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and Sunday Independent.


*1       Nonsense - first half of 2007 means either the first or second term of the legal year of 2007. With about five other legal matters to be finalised prior thereto, plus the completion of the new KPMG forensic report based on records arising from the five matters, this "window" of time is rather narrow in court terms.

This, me thinks, is the verbal clutching at straws.

It is in any case largely due to the position taken by Thint that only the trial judge could rule on the matters in question has as its logical consequence an inevitable delay in the commencement of the mail trial.

There are two sides to a coin- and a sword - live with it - it's called reality.

*2      Another of Jeremy Gordin's perennial unnamed sources of legal expertise - is this legal expert Yunis Shaikh?

*3      Another fallacy of legal "expertise" - this time the infamous non-sequitur - it just does not follow - however hard Kemp and Kessie may try.