JZ’s legal team still has a few cards left to play
Jacob Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, on Thursday met Zuma’s counsel from his corruption case, Kemp J Kemp SC, to discuss their response to the 16 charges of corruption, money laundering and racketeering against their client.
The former president’s legal team, led by Kemp, is likely to kick off by challenging the validity of the decision taken by Shaun Abrahams, the national director of public prosecutions, to reject Zuma’s representations for the prosecution to be discontinued.
An application for a permanent stay of prosecution is also on the cards. It is likely to include an assault on the integrity of the forensic report, compiled by KPMG auditor Johan van der Walt, around which the original indictment — as well as the one against Zuma’s former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik — were structured.
During Shaik’s corruption trial, prosecutor Billy Downer SC used the report to build a consolidated picture of the flow of money between Shaik and Zuma. The transactions it detailed corroborated the claims of illegal dealings Downer outlined in a timeline presented to the high court in Durban.
However, KPMG’s role in the South African Revenue Service’s “rogue unit” saga has placed the integrity of its forensic reports in question and Zuma’s legal team will probably use this to discredit the documentary evidence against him.
Hulley had, in a statement released at the weekend, questioned the rationale for the decision by Abrahams, saying they were “likely” to go to court to take the decision on review.
“We are giving consideration to the one-page and somewhat terse response received from [Abrahams] wherein he has advised that the representations made on behalf of Mr Jacob Zuma are unsuccessful,” Hulley said.
“The rationale for this decision is not clearly apparent from the communication, nor is the basis for the refusal. In the circumstances, the likely course of action would be to take [Abrahams’s] decision … on review,’’ he said.
On Wednesday, Hulley met Zuma ahead of the Kemp consultation, telling the Mail & Guardian he would only respond to media queries after the Kemp meeting. At the time of writing, Hulley was not available for comment.