Sudden naming of Mbeki as a potential defence witness is a political strategy that is already paying dividends "‘Just as there are ANC members ... who have come out in support of me being the next president, so there are those in public and in government who are very much opposed to me being president’"

ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma has upped the political ante in his corruption trial, directly linking his prosecution to a conspiracy — involving the highest offices of the state and the ruling party — to prevent him becoming president.

Zuma’s affidavit, filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, paints a picture of a presidential contender slapped with malicious, trumped-up charges, with no factual basis, with the explicit aim of removing him from the race to head both the ANC and the country.

It also portrays Zuma as a man subjected to all manner of illegal and cynical manipulations of the criminal justice system, who is being starved by organs of the state withholding resources critical to him having a fair defence.

Zuma, it says, is a popular leader beloved by his people, who is under siege from powerful forces in the ruling party and the state, who will stop at nothing in a bid to scupper his presidential ambitions and subvert the will of the people.

Even more importantly, Zuma’s affidavit drags President Thabo Mbeki directly into the quagmire, naming him as one of the few people who can clear his name on the charge that he protected a French arms dealer in return for the promise of a R1-million bribe.

Already the Zuma camp is talking of the likelihood of Mbeki being subpoenaed as a defence witness, a strategy aimed at turning the spotlight on Zuma’s former boss and embarrassing him — perhaps forcing the state to back off and withdraw the charge in the face of pressure from the presidency.

Public demands by his backers for an investigation into the arms deal to identify the “real beneficiaries” of corruption were made outside the court room on Monday by the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. Such calls will get louder in the coming weeks and months as a means of amplifying the pressure.

In the short term, this strategy already seems to be bearing fruit: fresh negotiations between Zuma’s attorneys and the presidency over the state footing the bill for Zuma’s multimillion-rand legal team are already under way.

Zuma and co-accused Pierre Moynot, representing French arms dealer Thint’s South African concerns, are charged with corruption and fraud. Zuma is accused of taking a series of payments from his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, in return for trying to secure deals on his behalf.

Moynot and Zuma also face a corruption charge over an alleged R1-million bribe for protecting Thint from investigations into the arms deal. The bribe was allegedly facilitated by Shaik, on Zuma’s behalf, in the now infamous encrypted fax to Thint bosses. Zuma also faces secondary charges of tax evasion and fraud.

In his affidavit, submitted to oppose a prosecution request for a postponement until next year, Zuma argues that Judge Qed’usizi Herbert Msimang should order a permanent stay of execution or strike the matter from the roll unless the state withdraws the charges.

The prosecution made the application for adjournment based on its inability to finalise an indictment in the face of several outstanding court applications around seized documents and Shaik’s impending appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeal on August 21. He is challenging his conviction on corruption and fraud charges and an effective 15-year jail sentence. It was on the basis of this conviction that Zuma was charged and later fired by Mbeki.

Zuma argues that the way in which he has been charged and prosecuted caused him “very real and serious irremediable personal, social, economic and trial prejudice”. The motive for his prosecution and the delays, Zuma says, “impact on my role in the leadership structures of the ANC and South Africa”.

Challenging the state to disclose how much it has spent on prosecuting him and Shaik over a six-year period, Zuma says the investigation into him was “designed solely or mainly to destroy my reputation and political role”.

“My conviction on any possible type of offence is being pursued at all costs,” he maintains. “I have been touted as a potential presidential candidate ... Just as there are ... ANC members who have come out in support of me being the next president, so there are those in public and in government who are very much opposed to me being president and indeed some who wish me to have no role to play in the politics of this country ... The charges against me have been initiated, and certainly fuelled, by a political conspiracy to remove me as a role player in the ANC.”

Zuma argues that the arms-deal probe was not aimed at exposing corruption, but rather at launching a fishing expedition against him to find a means of removing him from the succession race.

“These investigations were not geared towards establishing corruption in the arms deal, but indeed that this was used to ostensibly legitimise a wide-ranging investigation of my conduct and financial affairs in order to find some aspect which could be used to discredit me,” Zuma says. He adds that “some members” of the state intelligence service were used in this campaign against him.

Zuma says that at the time of the arms deal, Mbeki was “very much involved in the process”.

Distancing himself from Mbeki’s being “scurrilously accused” of “improprieties in this regard”, Zuma says that Mbeki is a “person who is ideally and obviously suited to depose to the absence of corruption in the award process”.

“If he does so, then the prosecution must revisit and rethink the allegations that I was bribed to protect the French interests against exposure for corruption in the arms deal,” he says.

Zuma questions why the prosecution has not taken a statement from Mbeki about the deal, or called him as a witness.

“I have every respect for the Office of the President and the need to avoid embroiling the incumbent in litigation ... It is thus the more unfortunate that the prosecution has seen fit not to approach the presidency to eliminate these ares of accusation from the litigation,” adds Zuma.

Zuma’s affidavit asserts that the charges, and his dismissal as deputy president, have rendered him “effectively unemployed and quite unemployable”.

“It has cast a social pall over me. I am viewed with suspicion. I have been branded a corrupt criminal in the press. It has placed a tremendous strain on my personal life,” maintains Zuma.

He adds that the January 19 2001 letter to Scopa, which he signed and which Shaik trial Judge Hilary Squires used to convict Shaik, reflected a “rather reckless use of the judgment in Shaik’s case”.

“The letter in question was not drafted or composed by myself or my office. It was, word for word, drafted by the President’s office and forwarded to me with an instruction that I should sign it. I did comply ... even the most superficial investigation must have revealed that to the prosecution.”

Zuma said that Mbeki “undertook to put things straight about the letter”.

“What I say is correct — the honourable president has publicly pronounced this.”

•Judge Msimang adjourned the trial until September 5, when the application for an adjournment will be argued in full.

With acknowledgement to Paddy Harper and Sunday Times.