Defence will bid to sink rape story

Jacob Zuma's defence was set to go on the attack today, seeking to expose gaps or evasions in the graphic State evidence by his accuser on the first day of the rape trial.

Zuma pleaded not guilty to rape in the Johannesurg High Court yesterday.

The State alleges he raped a 31-year-old woman he has known since her childhood at his home in Forest Town, Johannesburg, on November 2 last year.

Zuma has admitted sex took place but says it was consensual.

The HIV-positive complainant, an Aids activist, gave her evidence in camera yesterday.

She said Zuma had raped her despite her protestations.

Kemp J Kemp, SC, and Jerome Brauns, SC, for Zuma, will ask the woman why she did not protest more vociferously, given that Zuma's daughter was in the house and there were police officers on the premises.

The defence will also probably ask why, after the woman allegedly had been raped and was feeling "completely devastated", she sent a text message to her sisters and friends saying, "I think the old man has eyes for me. It must be something in my drawers [panties]".

Yesterday the complainant said she had done this because she wanted to "communicate in some way" to her sisters and friends that she had been raped but was unable for emotional reasons to state it directly.

The defence is also likely to focus on banter she had with Zuma, whom she calls uncle.

She said this had been light-hearted and inoffensive but the defence will contend it carried sexual innuendo. The woman said that when Zuma said he wanted her to come to his room to tuck him up in bed, she asked him with a smile and a laugh: "Uncle, what kind of tucking in is it that requires me to come to your room in order for me to tuck you in?"

The complainant said repeatedly that by raping her, Zuma had violated a "familial" relationship. Throughout her testimony she referred to him as "uncle" and said he had called her "my daughter".

The defence is likely to suggest to her that while Zuma may have indeed played a "fatherly" role for her following the death of her father - Zuma's comrade and a well-known ANC activist - contact between her and Zuma had not been constant over the years, and that she is 31 years old and an adult - and might be purposely over-emphasising the father-daughter aspect.

The complainant said yesterday that Zuma had tried to buy her silence by discussing compensation. The defence, it is believed, will suggest either that this conversation never took place or that "compensation" for her studies - a subject the complainant had discussed with Zuma for many months - might be at the root of the rape complaint.

The woman said yesterday that she had been told on November 12 by her witness protection unit "minder", a police officer, what to say to the media and whom to contact on a specific newspaper.

The defence is likely to to ask her why, since she was by then adamant that she would lay a charge of rape against Zuma, she took instruction from a police "minder".

A more complicated and sensitive issue with which the defence will have to deal is the allegation by the complainant that Zuma had raped her without a condom, even though he knew she was HIV-positive.

Zuma's defence team has also indicated that it intends to cite the fact that the complainant has previously made similar allegations about rape.

The trial continues today.

With acknowledgement to Jeremy Gordin, GIll Gifford, Karyn Maughan and the Cape Argus.