Parties demand Zuma charges be reinstated
OPPOSITION parties have threatened to go to court if National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams does not reinstate fraud, racketeering and moneylaundering charges against President Jacob Zuma.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa warned Abrahams yesterday not to delay deciding whether or not to prosecute Zuma.
”If he declines to prosecute, the parties may still go to court,” he said, adding that Abrahams had little room to manoeuvre as courts had ordered that Zuma be charged.
Holomisa suggested that Abrahams recuse himself from deciding whether or not to prosecute Zuma following the North Gauteng High Court judgment ordering him to vacate his office and that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa appoint his replacement as Zuma is conflicted.
Abrahams filed his application for leave to appeal the judgment last month.
According to Holomisa, Abrahams should let the prima facie evidence against Zuma be tested in court.
”On what basis will the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) stand as judges?” he asked.
The NPA has traced all the witnesses and they are available to testify against Zuma.
Yesterday, the DA was eagerly waiting on Abrahams to provide his party with Zuma’s submissions, which were sent to the NPA on Wednesday night, just in time to meet the midnight deadline.
DA federal executive chairperson James Selfe said they wanted Zuma’s submissions, to allow his party to respond to Zuma.
Selfe said the delay in giving other parties access to details of Zuma’s submissions was another tactic to further stall his prosecution.
He said the DA wanted parties to go to court and make interlocutory applications to obtain those documents.
Zuma was initially given the deadline of November 30 to make his submissions following the Supreme Court of Appeal’s (SCA) judgment dismissing his appeal in October.
Zuma, and the NPA had appealed an earlier North Gauteng High Court ruling setting aside the decision to withdraw 18 charges and 783 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering against Zuma.
The SCA found: “It is difficult to understand why the present regime at the NPA considered that the decision to terminate the prosecution could be defended.”
The court found that in reviewing his own decision to institute criminal proceedings against Zuma, and ultimately making the decision to terminate the prosecution, former acting NPA boss Mokotedi Mpshe wrongly invoked and relied on the constitution and the NPA Act.
”Mpshe’s stated purpose of preserving the integrity of the NPA and advancing the cause of justice can hardly be said to have been achieved,” it found.
When the matter was heard in September last year, Zuma’s lawyer, Kemp J Kemp, conceded that Mpshe’s decision to drop the charges in April 2009 was irrational.
The DA is demanding that Zuma’s trial date be set.