NPA 'looking at how to drop charges'

After eight years of investigation and court battles, costing at least R100 million, moves are afoot to drop the criminal charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma.

The Cape Times has been reliably informed that top-ranking National Prosecuting Authority officials intend to withdraw the 16 charges against Zuma and are in the process of formulating how this will be "managed".

Sources say the main reason advanced is that the prosecution does not have "a winnable case".

A crucial meeting of NPA staff central to the case is scheduled for today to discuss the matter.

While the intention to withdraw the case against Zuma had been confirmed by several sources, NPA spokesman Tlali Tlali said yesterday that the decision had not been taken.

"We have not taken a decision on the matter since representations were received from Mr Zuma.

"The NPA is applying its mind in this regard and once a decision to forge ahead has been taken, the NPA will communicate same to Mr Zuma's lawyers.

"The national director of public prosecutions would like to reiterate that no communiqué carrying such a message has been sent from the NPA to Mr Zuma's lawyers."

Zuma's lawyer, Michael Hulley, yesterday would only say that no decision on the issue had been communicated to him.

A source within Zuma's legal team has, however, expressed its dissatisfaction over reports on the withdrawal of the charges against him, blaming them on an unidentified prosecutor "who wants to mess with the process".

A reliable source confirmed yesterday that senior ANC leaders were aware that the "decision is coming", a move that will boost the party's election campaign a month before the April 22 poll.

Meanwhile, Zuma's Mauritian legal team is scheduled to appear in the Mauritian Supreme Court today.

The team will seek to challenge a ruling stopping Zuma from intervening in the NPA's efforts to obtain potential evidence against him. Zuma wants to argue that Mauritian authorities should not hand over the originals of more than a dozen documents used to convict his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, of fraud and corruption to the NPA, because they would be used in a politically-motivated trial.

No NPA officials will attend the hearing in Mauritius.

Today's meeting of Zuma's team would be the first since Shaik's controversial release on medical parole.

It also comes after Zuma's corruption co-accused, French arms company Thint, applied to the KwaZulu-Natal High Court this week for a permanent stay of the prosecution.

In the application, former Thint regional head Alain Thetard, the author of the infamous "encrypted fax" that implicated Zuma in corruption, categorically stated that he would never testify in the ANC president's trial.

The Thint application also included allegations that former justice minister Penuell Maduna had been party to promises that all charges against Thint would be permanently withdrawn.

Zuma's lawyers filed substantial submissions with the NPA last month in which they argued for all 16 charges against him to be dropped. His legal team also met prosecutors in Pretoria on February 20 to discuss the representations. Two separate sources said the team returned "upbeat".

With acknowledgements to Karyn Maughan and Cape Times.