ZUMA ‘FREE’

…as court cancels former president 's arrest warrant

JOHANNESBURG - The High Court in Pietermaritzburg has cancelled an arrest warrant against South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma after his lawyer handed in a doctor's letter confirming his ill-health.

The arrest warrant was issued in February after Zuma failed to appear in court for a hearing.

His legal team had said the former president had gone to Cuba for a medical procedure, but the court was not satisfied with the explanation.

Zuma appeared in court yesterday to face multiple charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering, as a decade-old trial delayed by procedural bickering resumed.

Zuma is being tried on 16 charges relating to a $2 billion arms deal with French defence firm Thales in 1999, when he was deputy president.

The charges were reinstated in March 2018, a month after the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party kicked him out of office after a presidency marked by graft allegations and sovereign credit rating downgrades.

The former leader, in power between 2009 and 2018, rejects all allegations as a politically motivated witch-hunt. But the case is a rare example of an African judicial system seeking to prosecute a former leader for alleged wrongdoing.

Much of yesterday’s pre-trial hearing was focused on fixing a date for the trial to continue after multiple efforts by Zuma to cancel or delay it.

Judge Dhaya Pillay did not set a date for the trial proper to start. She adjourned the proceedings until September 8.

The court in November rejected Zuma’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution, and in February issued an arrest warrant for him.