• Claims by Zuma that he has been injured politically and personally by the alleged delays in his trial for corruption and fraud amount to much smoke and little fire;
• Contrary to what Zuma alleges, a correct analysis of the situation "reveals" that, if his trial starts at the beginning of 2007, the delay in bringing him to court will have been only 20 months and, in the case of Thint, only 16 months; and
• In any case, the decision to prosecute Zuma is not "susceptible to judicial review". So Zuma's attempts to impugn the decision to prosecute him, and get trial Judge Herbert Msimang to award a permanent stay of prosecution or strike the matter off the roll, are "misguided".

The state also said that insults that have been levelled at it for prosecuting Zuma and Thint - and for the way in which this has been done - have been "unfounded, inappropriate and intemperate".

The state was referring to comments by the defence that it had been "extremely misleading", "disingenuous", "less than frank with the court", and "[had] acted scandalously".

The state said it would not react to such sabre-rattling, but would stick to the law. The state argued that Zuma's claim that his hope of becoming a leader of the ANC and the country may be thwarted if the current charges are still pending in 2007 was at best speculative.

Zuma claimed, said the state, that it was "plainly essential" that his fate be determined well before next year, not only in his personal interest, but also in "the national and public interest".

But there had been no evidence to suggest that the trial will not have been concluded by the time of the December 2007 ANC elections, referred to by Zuma as the pivotal date in his political life.

Regarding Zuma's claim that certain individuals would allegedly seek to "exclude [him] from any meaningful political role" if the trial were pending, the state said Zuma had not identified these "shadowy" individuals, and "we respectfully submit … that the prosecuting authorities cannot be held hostage to [Zuma's] hopes to stand for high office at the end of 2007".

Anyway, said the state, if Zuma "will indeed at the end of next year be a candidate for high public office, then it is all the more important that his prosecution should not be stifled… If he is innocent, it is of vital importance to him, his party and the country that his innocence be established.

"If he is guilty on the other hand, then it is vitally important that his guilt be exposed for all to see… It is of vital personal and national interest that this case be determined on its merits after a full and open public inquiry."

Regarding Zuma's claims that the charges against him had lost him the deputy presidency and caused him to be unemployed and unemployable, the state said that Zuma had not substantiated the claims in any way.

"He does not indicate what employment he applied for, when he applied for it or what response he received.

"He does not even indicate what sort of employment he is qualified for or interested in.

"We submit that these complaints are so lacking in specificity that they should be discounted in their entirety."

In any case, if Zuma had indeed been injured politically and socially, "[this] is [the] unfortunate fate of most people who stand accused of serious and complex commercial crime".

The state maintained there have been no "unreasonable" delays either in charging Zuma or in bringing him and Thint Holdings to trial.

It said that the "clock only begins to run" once an accused had been charged.

In Zuma's case, the state said, Zuma became an accused on June 20 2005, and Thint and Moynot on November 4 2005.

Using July 31 2006 as a benchmark, the state said that a delay of about 13 months for Zuma and nine months for Thint "is not unreasonable and is modest compared to the typical systemic delays in high court trials".

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and Sunday Independent.