Former president Jacob Zuma says his prosecution for corruption 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 high court in Pietermaritzburg, towards a stay of prosecution on charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering related to the multibillion-rand arms deal, Zuma accuses the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of multiple acts of misconduct and bias — including deliberately failing to put him on trial with his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik, who 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," the former president says.
It is the state’s case that Shaik and his Nkobi Holdings made 783 payments to Zuma totalling more than R4m in the ten-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 in KwaZulu-Natal and as deputy president of the ANC to do favours illegally for Shaik and Nkobi Holdings.
The state further alleges that Thint, the local subsidiary of French arms company Thales, "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 more than 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, which he won.
Zuma further states that the so-called spy tape recordings of former national director of public prosecutions (NDPP) Bulelani Ngcuka, discussing the timing of charges against him 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 tape 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. Zuma conceded in the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2017 that the 2009 dropping of corruption charges against him was irrational. The SCA had found in the matter that the so-called spy tapes “did not impinge on the propriety of the investigation” against Zuma “or the merits of the prosecution itself”.
Zuma says his prosecution “commenced on the basis that the arms deal was mired in corruption”, but adds that this “allegation has since been dismissed by the Seriti commission”, which Zuma appointed to investigate corruption in the arms deal.
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 applications for a permanent stay of prosecution.
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