Zuma accuses NPA of acts of misconduct, bias
Ex-president talks of strong bid to get him convicted
Former president Jacob Zuma says his corruption prosecution has been defined by political manipulation, undue delay and “blatant prosecutorial bias” – all designed “to prejudice me and declare me synonymous with crime and corruption”. In a nearly 300-page affidavit filed on Friday in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court toward the stay of prosecution for the charges he faces of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering related to the multi-billion rand arms deal, Zuma accuses the NPA of multiple acts of misconduct and bias - including deliberately not putting him on trial with his former financial advisor Schabir Shaik. Shaik was convicted of corrupting him. “Without due process or court determination of my guilt or otherwise, I have faced public and media prosecution engineered and orchestrated by the NPA itself, the result of which is that my name has already been made to be synonymous with corruption,” Zuma states.
It’s the state’s case that Shaik and Shaik’s Nkobi Holdings made 783 payments to Zuma totalling over R4m in the 10-year period between October 25 1995 and July 1 2005.
In return for these payments, the state claims, Zuma abused his formal position as MEC and as deputy president of the ANC to do unlawful favours for Shaik and Nkobi Holdings.
The state further alleges that Thint “conspired with Shaik and Zuma to pay Zuma the amount of R500 000 per annum as a bribe” in exchange for Zuma’s protection from any arms deal investigations.
In his court papers, Zuma says the NPA should also answer to allegations that “public and private funds were used to influence the rape charge” laid against him over a decade ago – a case he now suggests was part of “concerted efforts to get me convicted of a crime” and rule him out of the ANC’s 2007 leadership race. He maintains that the rape case against him, of which he was acquitted, may have been part of a plot to neutralise him as a candidate for the ANC’s leadership race. Zuma further states that the so-called spy tape recordings of ex-National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Bulelani Ngcuka, discussing the timing of when he would be charged with then Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy, “attest to the most grotesque political manipulation and interference ever experienced in the post-apartheid criminal justice system”.
Zuma says the spy tapes clearly illustrate that the NPA “was aligning itself to support former president Thabo Mbeki’s political ambitions, and to thwart mine”. Then acting NDPP Mokotedi Mpshe dropped the corruption prosecution against Zuma on the basis of the spy tapes recordings in 2009, but that decision was successfully challenged in court by the DA. Former NDPP Shaun Abrahams reinstated corruption, fraud, tax evasion and racketeering charges against Zuma in March. The former president is now seeking to have that prosecution permanently stopped.
Zuma and Thint/Thales will return to Court on November 30, when a date will be set for the NPA to respond to their respective permanent stay applications.