Judge Zondo admits to love child link

DEPUTY Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has admitted that he had a love child whose aunt is former president Jacob Zuma’s estranged wife, Thobeka Madiba.

However, Zondo said his relationship with Madiba’s sister predated her marriage to Zuma.

Zuma’s attorney, Eric Mabuza, last month claimed that Judge Zondo was biased against his client due to historical family relations.

“In the mid-1990s, when I was in my thirties and was still in private practice as a lawyer, I got into a relationship with a certain woman out of which a child was born. That relationship ended during the 1990s,” Judge Zondo said.

He said he could not have known at the time that the former first lady would be married to Zuma years later.

”To my knowledge, Zuma had no relationship with Ms Thobeka Madiba in the mid-1990s. That Mr Zuma happened to marry the sister of a woman with whom I had had a relationship that had ended so many years before that marriage has never had any bearing on the execution of my judicial functions in the many matters involving Zuma in which I have sat as a Justice of the Constitutional Court since 2012, nor does it have any bearing on the execution of my duties as chairperson of the commission.”

He said in none of the matters involving Zuma, in which he has sat in the past, has Zuma ever expressed any complaint or concern, nor has he ever brought an application for his recusal.

Judge Zondo said he thought it necessary to bring this clarification.

“But I do not at this stage intend to address any of the other allegations made in Zuma’s attorney’s letter.”