ANC deputy’s accusers call his bluff and demand he show evidence that Mbeki is plotting against him

What McCarthy said:

‘No conspirator could have manufactured all the objective records of a very wide-ranging nature obtained by the NPA from a plethora of different, unrelated sources ...’

‘The insults and slurs of the defence on the manner in which the state has conducted the investigation and prosecution of this case are scurrilous and utterly unfounded. ’

‘The decisions to prosecute them have been taken with scrupulous care, in good faith and on solid grounds.’

What Ngcuka said:

‘The news that the investigation team had uncovered evidence implicating the deputy president in corruption came as an unpleasant revelation to me. The decisions which I was subsequently forced to make were difficult, unpleasant and taken at great personal cost to myself and my family.’

‘I am verily of the belief that these rumours [of a conspiracy] have been started and fuelled by Zuma and his supporters in an attempt to deflect from the seriousness of the charges which he is facing.’

‘I may have tried too hard to protect Zuma’s reputation and not the contrary.’

What Pikoli said:

‘I took into account also the fact that Zuma had been making repeated calls to “have his day in court” and I felt that it would be unfair on him to prolong his uncertainty in circumstances in which I was already satisfied that there was enough evidence to form an opinion about the prospects of a successful prosecution. I felt that it would be neither in the interests of justice, nor the public interest, to prolong the speculation by delaying the announcement of my decision.’

‘I informed Zuma in person of my decision to institute a prosecution against him. I deemed it necessary to inform him personally of my decision as a matter of courtesy to the former deputy president. I should add that on a personal level, this was not an easy task for me, as this was a man that I had looked up to as my political leader in my time in exile.’

What Maduna said:

‘Once evidence was uncovered that required an investigation to be conducted in relation to Zuma, the NPA made every effort to handle the investigation with the utmost discretion and sensitivity. These efforts were successful until [Schabir] Shaik deliberately and cynically revealed in court papers the identity of Zuma, who had hitherto been referred to in all the state’s papers only as Mr X.’

‘If there was any conspiracy ... it was a conspiracy designed to discredit Ngcuka and the NPA simply because they were doing their job without fear, favour or prejudice as demanded by the Constitution.’

‘It is revealing that these allegations have only arisen after [Zuma] was charged’

Paddy Harper

If the exchange of documentation is anything to go by, Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial is set to be a brutal affair, with no legal blow deemed too low to deliver by either side.

Zuma’s affidavit to the Pietermaritzburg High Court on July31 and the state’s responses filed this week have set the tone for a courtroom slugfest, with neither side holding back the vitriol.

Zuma’s affidavit and that of his co-accused, Thint Holdings (Southern Africa) (Pty) Ltd and Thint (Pty) Ltd, were laden with accusations of political conspiracy and cynical manipulation by the prosecution and political forces within the ruling party.

The state’s responses — from National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli, his predecessor, Bulelani Ngcuka, former Justice Minister Penuell Maduna and Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy — are scathing in their deconstruction of Zuma’s conspiracy theory.

They also throw down the gauntlet to him to back up his allegations and make it clear, once and for all, whether he believes President Thabo Mbeki is behind the plot he claims is being orchestrated against him.

In simple terms, the state has called the defence’s bluff.

Rather than shying away from issues surrounding the President and Zuma’s prosecution, the state has directly confronted the question, daring Zuma to go public with evidence of Mbeki’s involvement in the alleged conspiracy against him.

The state has not stopped there: in the affidavits filed this week, prosecution authority bosses slam Zuma’s conspiracy claims as an “opportunistic” pack of lies aimed at deflecting attention from his “corrupt and criminal behaviour”.

On July 31 Zuma’s legal team applied for a permanent stay of prosecution, with Zuma claiming the arms-deal investigation was aimed at taking him out of the race for the ANC and national presidencies. The probe, Zuma argued in the application, dovetailed with a conspiracy within the ANC and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) aimed at ending his political career.

In an apparent attempt to enmesh Mbeki in the court case, Zuma also said the President was the person who could clarify Zuma’s role in the letter to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that formed part of the basis for Schabir Shaik’s corruption conviction and the subsequent decision to charge Zuma.

This week, Pikoli described Zuma’s allegations as “scurrilous and unfounded” and said they appeared to be part of “a concerted publicity campaign” by the Zuma camp.

Zuma, Pikoli’s affidavit said, had “chosen ... to rely on rumours, press reports, speculation and innuendo” rather than presenting factual arguments.

His dismissal as deputy president on June 14 last year had been a result of Shaik’s conviction for conducting a “generally corrupt relationship with Zuma” and had happened before the decision to prosecute Zuma was taken on June 20.

“By asserting, without a shred of proof, that the real reason [for his dismissal] was that I had decided to prosecute [Zuma] for corruption, [Zuma] is effectively branding the President a liar,” said Pikoli.

“I challenge [Zuma] to pertinently state that the President lied to Parliament and to spell out whether or not he asserts that the President is also a party to the alleged political conspiracy against him.”

Pikoli denied he had briefed Mbeki about the decision to charge Zuma while on a trip to Chile, as Zuma has claimed. Mbeki had been informed only on the morning Pikoli had made the announcement.

Pikoli denied being part of any conspiracy to nail Zuma. “I take my oath of office seriously. I have no interest as to who governs the country. My allegiance is to the Constitution and the upholding of the rule of law.

“I challenge [Zuma] to state whether I am alleged to be part of such a conspiracy.”

Pikoli’s predecessor, Ngcuka, said the ANC NEC had investigated Zuma’s claims of a conspiracy and “found them to be baseless”.

“I am verily of the belief that these rumours have been started and fuelled by Zuma and his supporters in an attempt to deflect from the seriousness of the charges which he is facing,” Ngcuka said. “They appear to be based entirely on rumours (many of which appear to have been generated by his own supporters and spin doctors) ...”

Outlining the events leading to the prosecution, Ngcuka said he had “done everything within my powers” to protect Zuma’s reputation and that Zuma had been outed as the target of a Scorpions investigation only by Shaik in an affidavit before court.

“If any criticism is to be levelled at the manner in which the investigation was handled, in retrospect, it is that I may have tried too hard to protect [Zuma’s] reputation and not the contrary.”

The investigators probing the arms deal had, with the passage of time, uncovered evidence of a corrupt relationship between Zuma and Shaik and of an attempt to secure a bribe of R1-million from Thint, he said.

This was “simply the result of conscientious investigators following the trail of evidence, nothing more and nothing less.”

The decision to charge Zuma had been “difficult, unpleasant and taken at great personal cost to myself and my family,” Ngcuka said.

Zuma, in his affidavit, had again made allegations about Ngcuka holding an off-the-record meeting with newspaper editors to discuss the smear campaign against him.

“I regard it as surprising and disturbing ... that [Zuma] seeks to resurrect these defamatory allegations in the present papers when he must be well aware that their reliability is, at the very least, subject to serious question,” Ngcuka said. “I am advised that should he persist with these allegations, I would be quite within my rights to pursue legal remedies.”

Maduna backed Ngcuka’s argument in his affidavit, saying it was Shaik who had “deliberately and cynically” revealed Zuma’s identity in court papers in November 2002.

Maduna said the only conspiracy in operation was one aimed to “discredit Ngcuka and the NPA simply because they were doing their job without fear, favour or prejudice as demanded by the Constitution”.

Zuma, Maduna said, had rejected an invitation to give evidence at the Hefer Commission, whose terms had been extended to include any abuse of office by Ngcuka, and had suggested that he would defy a subpoena.

“If [Zuma] had any credible information ... I would have expected him to have placed [it] before the commission, where [it] could have been thoroughly canvassed and tested.

“It is revealing that these allegations have only arisen after [he] was charged. I verily believe that these allegations are part of a cynical ploy by [Zuma] to evoke uninformed public sympathy and to deflect attention from the serious charges that he faces.”

Maduna challenged Zuma to repeat allegations that he and Ngcuka are part of a plot against him. He said Zuma’s attempts to implicate Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils in this conspiracy “demonstrates the squalid nature of these allegations”.

Maduna also hammered the allegations surrounding the Scopa letter, saying that had Zuma not agreed with its content, he should not have signed it or should have amended it.

“Speaking for myself, I would not, in my position as a Cabinet minister, have appended my signature to a document in circumstances where I did not endorse its contents. By signing the letter [Zuma] appropriated the letter as his own.”

Scorpions head McCarthy rebutted Zuma and Thint’s arguments from a nuts-and-bolts, legal-process perspective.

He described the defence arguments as “gratuitous insults”, “slurs” and a “highly selective and self-serving distortion of the facts”.

“Most of the complaints are ... not so much about the manner in which their prosecution has been conducted, but about the fact that they have been prosecuted at all,” he said.

Turning to delays in the case, McCarthy said the state was just as frustrated as the defence and that there was no justification in the defence’s attempt to blame the delays on the state.

“While the defence complains loudly about the delay, they have also not done anything to expedite proceedings.”

He quoted the defence application for a stay of prosecution as an example of this, saying it had been threatening to do it for months but had failed to do so until July 31.

“They waited instead until the very morning of the trial date to launch their application, well knowing that it would then necessitate further delays before it could be heard. They failed to give any explanation for their delay. It belies their protestations of urgency.”

With acknowledgements to Paddy Harper and the Sunday Times.