Jacob Zuma gears up for the ‘biggest trial of his life’

After 15 years and multiple legal battles, former president Jacob Zuma is gearing up to face what his foundation has described

as "the biggest trial of his life": the state’s corruption case against him.

A statement released by the JG Zuma Foundation on Sunday revealed that Zuma had fired his attorney of the past two years, Daniel Mantsha, "so that he can focus more on the preparation for the trial" with Mantsha’s replacement, high-profile attorney Eric Mabuza.

Mabuza would not be drawn on Sunday on whether Zuma’s new legal team would withdraw his last-ditch legal bid — filed at the Constitutional Court on the eve of the countrywide Covid-19 shutdown — to appeal against the dismissal of his application for a permanent stay of prosecution.

But it seems apparent, given the foundation’s statement that Zuma is intent on dispelling "the much repeated and tired narrative that seeks to suggest that in previously exercising his rights former president Zuma sought to avoid his day in court or was adopting what the state calls Stalingrad tactics", that he no longer intends pursuing that appeal bid.

In the Constitutional Court application, Zuma insisted that it would be impossible to receive a fair trial if the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was responsible for trying him. He also stated that he would have testified in the trial of former financial adviser Schabir Shaik, who was convicted of corrupting him in 2005, only if he had been granted immunity from prosecution by the NPA.

Given that such immunity is contingent on an acknowledgment of guilt, and Zuma has always maintained that he was innocent of the arms deal-related corruption accusations made against him, this admission was bizarre.

The Zuma Foundation now says Zuma believes his trial will provide "much needed certainty about the bona fides of the state’s case against him as well as shed light on the much needed certainty as to who exactly benefited from the alleged arms deal corruption".

It is the state’s case that Zuma accepted a R500,000 a year bribe from French arms company Thales, facilitated by Shaik, in return for providing "political protection" from any potential investigation into the arms deal.

But he has maintained that it was former president Thabo Mbeki who wrote a letter, signed by him, that sought to block the Special Investigating Unit from probing the controversial multibillion-rand deal.

Thales was a significant beneficiary of the arms deal and is Zuma’s co-accused.

It has lodged its own Constitutional Court challenge to the decision of Shaun Abrahams, the former national director of public prosecutions, to charge it with Zuma. But the court has yet to decide whether it will agree to hear that case, or dismiss it outright. Thales is not taking any chances, it would seem. It has appointed advocate Barry Roux, who is well known for his defence of Oscar Pistorius, to represent it.

While Zuma terminated Mantsha’s services, he has retained advocate Muzi Sikhakhane as his lead counsel and expressed his "unreserved trust and confidence in him and his team". Mantsha, who has been Zuma’s attorney of record since 2018, could not be reached for comment.

Zuma is due back in the high court in Pietermaritzburg on May 6 and has a suspended arrest warrant hanging over his head because of his failure to appear at his last hearing because of alleged ill health. Judge Dhaya Pillay refused to accept a "sick note" presented by Mantsha as acceptable evidence that the former president was, in fact, unwell.