Jacob Zuma’s bid to have the rape case against him thrown out of court failed today. Mr Justice Willem van der Merwe said he could not agree with Zuma’s defence that the evidence led by the State was of such poor quality that it could not be accepted by the court.

And he believed that should no further evidence be put forward, Zuma could nevertheless be convicted of rape.

Prior to Judge Van der Merwe’s ruling in the Johannesburg High Court, Zuma had appeared relaxed. Afterwards he appeared to flush deeply.

Addressing the contention by defence advocate Kemp J Kemp SC that the State had failed to prove that Zuma had the intention to rape his accuser, Judge Van der Merwe said such a ruling could not be made.

He had kept in mind Kemp’s request to have the evidence led by two police officers, Commissioner Norman Taoie and Superintendent Bafana Peter Linda, declared inadmissible. He had not taken their evidence into account during his consideration.

“The question whether it’s inadmissible or not is in my judgment a factual issue and I will decide this at the end of the trial,” the judge said.

After the ruling the court stood down to allow counsel to consult with the judge on how the trial will now progress.

Earlier Kemp hit back at allegations that Zuma’s suspicion of a political plot against him were unsubstantiated.

He said it had never been Zuma’s submission that his accuser had gone to his Johannesburg home on the night of the alleged rape as a “plant”.

“What we are saying is that she told Dr (Mupata) Likibi, the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital doctor who examined her, not to do anything with the evidence he had gathered because she was still making up her mind,” Kemp said.

Evidence had been that the complainant had then spoken to her friend Kimi Lesibi, who is the secretary to Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils.

Kemp said that the day after the complainant had spoken to Msibi, she had made a seven-minute phone call to Kasrils and then proceeded to lay the charge against Zuma.

In the heads of argument before the court, Kemp contended that her explanation for her call to Kasrils – that she had sought his advice on the witness protection programme – was “not convincing”.

Kasrils was “another potential sponsor of the complainant”.

Kasrils was listed as a State witnesses at the start of the trial, but was never called.

Kemp said the woman’s mother had contacted Kasrils on November 12, the day before news of the rape charge against Zuma was first published.

One of the few questions the accuser had refused to respond to was Kemp’s contention that Zuma’s first reaction on hearing of the charge against him was that he was the victim of a political plot.

State advocate Herman Broodryk contended yesterday that the defence allegations that the rape charge emanated from a political conspiracy against Zuma had no factual basis.

“If this was supposed to be a political conspiracy, then it was not very well planned.

“There were no real physical injuries, no victim with blood on her face, no terrible story,” he said.

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