Jacob Zuma was tried in the court of public opinion and found guilty Kemp J Kemp SC, Zuma's counsel, told the Pietermaritzburg High Court today.

He argued that Zuma had, in fact, been prejudiced by the State's conduct long before charges were actually laid in June 2005.

Zuma and his co-accused, French arms company, are facing charges of corruption.

Kemp was referring to the August 2003 statement by the former minister of justice Penuell Maduna and former national director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka in which they said there was a prima facie case against Zuma but that they would not prosecute him.

Meanwhile, questions and uncertainty hang over exactly what charges Zuma will face if and when he goes on trial for corruption.

Kemp today argued that the State wanted to make "a different case with different evidence" against Zuma - and it needed time to do so.

This, he said, was the real reason behind the State's application to postpone the trial to next year.

His comments have also added fuel to speculation that the State will introduce new charges against Zuma when it presents its final indictment against him on October 15.

It is understood that the massive KPMG forensic audit into Zuma's financial affairs, which includes records up to August 2005, will constitute a significant part of this new indictment. But the State has yet to confirm or deny reports that Zuma would face additional charges of tax evasion and fraud.

Zuma currently stands accused of agreeing to accept a R500 000 bribe to protect Thint from a damaging inquiry into South Africa's controversial arms deal.

Kemp today pointed out that Zuma had originally been charged with so-called "mirror image" counts of those charges successfully prosecuted against his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik.

But, he said, the State's request for a postponement was based on the problems it faced in securing evidence that was seemingly unrelated to these charges.

The State has previously contended that the primary reason for its postponement was to resolve several legal disputes surrounding search and seizure operations conducted by the Scorpions last year.

Kemp also contended that the State had acted unconstitutionally when it failed to hear Zuma's side of the story prior to charging him.

According to Kemp, certain constitutional provisions made it unlawful for the State to review a decision not to prosecute without seeking the input of the would-be accused person.

This, he said, was made worse by the fact that "it was not so that we didn't have anything to say".

Kemp referred directly to a letter which was allegedly written by Zuma and used by Judge Hilary Squires in his judgment against Shaik, which Kemp said had not been written by Zuma.

Yesterday, Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Herbert Msimang questioned State counsel Wim Trengove SC about the amount of time that the State had taken to resolve these disputes.

Pointing out that the State had claimed in May that it reasonably expected to resolve the disputes, Judge Msimang asked at what point these expectations would become unreasonable.

In comparison to Zuma's first appearance in court yesterday, Court A of the Pietermaritzburg High Court was dramatically emptier today.

With acknowledgements to Karyn Maughan, Jeremy Gordin, Staff Reporters and Cape Argus.