Police have sent fingerprints, as well as an unidentified object that was retrieved from a plastic rubbish bag outside ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma’s rented flat, for ballistics testing, further deepening the mystery surrounding Monday’s break-in.

SAPS director of communications for KwaZulu-Natal Senior Superintendent Phindile Radebe said yesterday that ballistics tests have been ordered. However, she declined to provide further details about the investigation into Monday’s break-in. She said that the investigation was continuing and that there had been no developments so far.

She said that police had been called to the flat in the Maluti building on Snell Parade in the early hours of Monday morning. However, it could not be established if anything had been taken. Zuma was in Johannesburg at the time of the break-in.

There were reports that the front door and security gate had been forced using a crowbar, and that police could not use the building’s CCTV cameras to identify potential suspects as the cameras had been mysteriously switched off on Saturday.

Radebe said she was aware of the issue surrounding the CCTV cameras and could not confirm if this was correct.

Zuma’s attorney Michael Hulley, who has suggested “sinister intentions” behind the forced entry, said late yesterday afternoon that he was “loath to comment” any further on the break-in as he was not sure how this will impact on the investigation.

He said a number of factors point to “something untoward”. These include information provided by police during the early stages of the investigation, the fact that extraordinary force had been used to break into the flat and the fact that the flat was in a dishevelled state but no items had been removed.

Hulley said that Zuma last stayed in the flat on Sunday during the day, but did not sleep there that night.

“What we noticed was that there were items of value that From page 1

were not taken.”

He said police had supplied him with information from the crime scene that led him to tell the Star newspaper: “This does not appear to be a random act of crime.”

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) condemned the break-in: “This incident is part and parcel of the concerted drive to victimise the ANC deputy president and to prevent him from getting a fair trial.

“This break-in follows the NPA’s raid on his Johannesburg house in 2005, which Cosatu also condemned,” said spokesman Patrick Craven.

“Without enough evidence to secure a conviction, some within the state structures seem to be using any means, legal and illegal, to lay their hands on enough ‘evidence’ to justify continuing their campaign to prosecute him, blacken his name and destroy his reputation.”

Reacting to the Cosatu comments, NPA spokesman Panyaza Lesufi said: “We are not providing any comment. We can’t stoop that low. We don’t make comments on such unfounded comments.”

The Star also reported that prosecuting authorities want Zuma to be censured for his “scandalous”, “gratuitous” and “unwarranted” accusations of dishonesty and political engineering against the state.

The report said the Scorpions have asked the Supreme Court of Appeal to order Zuma to foot a multi-million rand legal bill as punishment.

The ANC deputy president claimed that the state’s investigation into possible corruption charges against him was “engineered” to tarnish his name ahead of the party’s elective conference in December, the report said.

It added that the state will ask the appeal court “to consider ordering punitive costs against Zuma and Thint”.

This is “in the light of persistent, unfounded and unwarranted attacks on the integrity and good faith of officials of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions”.

With acknowledgements to Shirley Jones and The Witness.