Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2006-11-12 Reporter: Paddy Harper Reporter: Moipone Malefane

Prosecutors Mobilise for New Zuma Case

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2006-11-12

Reporter

 Paddy Harper, Moipone Malefane

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

Court battle likely to continue next year once appeals on admissibility of raid evidence have been heard.

National Prosecuting Authority investigators have approached ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe for help in their ongoing investigation of former Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

The quest for Motlanthe’s co- operation continued after Zuma’s corruption case was struck from the roll in September by Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Qed’usizi Msimang.

It has fuelled speculation that the NPA is preparing to press new charges against Zuma. The Sunday Times understands this could happen as early as the first quarter of next year.

It is not known whether Motlanthe has co-operated with the investigators.

The NPA is, however, waiting for the outcome of several appeals around the raids in August last year before it proceeds with corruption charges.

The Sunday Times understands that the NPA is likely to bring additional charges against South Africa’s former deputy president.

Prosecutors ­ buoyed by Monday’s victory in the rejection of Schabir Shaik’s appeal against his corruption and fraud conviction and sentence ­ have recommended that National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli hold off charging Zuma until the raid appeals have been concluded.

The prosecution team and lawyers representing Zuma and his former co-accused, French arms dealer Thint, are negotiating a joint session before the Supreme Court of Appeal.

At this sitting, the state’s appeals against the ruling outlawing the evidence seized during raids on Zuma and his lawyers, Michael Hulley and Juleika Mohamed, will be heard, along with Thint’s application against the ruling which declared the raid on its offices and the home of executive Pierre Moynot legal.

Given the Appeal Court’s calendar and the nature of the appeals, they are likely to be wrapped up by between March and May next year, paving the way for the charging of Zuma again.

Should the state lose its appeals, it will move to the fall- back position of charging Zuma with the acts of corruption for which Shaik was convicted.

If its appeals are upheld, the state will push for the broader corruption, fraud and tax evasion charges it initially laid against Zuma last year.

Zuma’s backers this week predictably went to bat on his behalf, calling on the state not to charge him again.

His most vocal supporters, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and Young Communist League (YCL), said the Supreme Court of Appeal’s ruling against Shaik brought nothing new, neither enhancing nor diminishing the grounds for the NPA to reopen a case against Zuma.

“Our position therefore is that any re-charging of Jacob Zuma would constitute a witch-hunt, a fishing expedition that would effectively perpetuate the NPA’s continued leap from one disaster to another, achieving nothing except ... further prejudicing the ANC deputy president’s public political standing,” the two youth wings stated.

ANCYL president Fikile Mbalula added that the league would continue to support Zuma despite being labelled for its stance.

“We will rebel against injustice ... Whether he is charged today, tomorrow or on Christmas Day, we will be there.”

YCL chairman David Masondo called on the NPA to charge President Thabo Mbeki together with Zuma, saying it was common knowledge that he played an important role in the arms-deal process while deputy president of the country.

“We are still convinced that the deputy president of the ANC is innocent and those who are calling for his head are mischievous and malicious.”

Masondo added that Shaik’s trial was a strategy to hunt Zuma *1 so that he did not become the next president of the country.

With acknowledgements to Paddy Harper, Moipone Malefane and Sunday Times.


*1      And a very successful one it appears.

Actually, Shaik’s trial is a strategy to hunt Thint.