Detail
- Artist: Francois Smit
- Published in: The Sunday Independent
- Author of article: Jeremy Gordin
- Date: 03/09/2006
- Paper: 280gsm 100% cotton acid free paper
- Ink: Epson ultrachrome archival pigment ink
- Image Size (printarea): 594mm x 420mm
- Frame: Optional
- Edition: Limited edition of 12
A short extract from the article
D-day approaches for Jacob Zuma.
Seven years after Patricia de Lille sounded the alarm bells, Zuma's chapter of the arms deal may soon close.
On Tuesday morning, as spring settles in throughout the country, the Jacob Zuma court saga is set to resume before Judge Herbert Q Msimang in Pietermaritzburg – yet it is possible that it might be over, for a while or perhaps even forever, within a couple of days.
Here is why.
Just a month ago, on July 31, the former deputy president, as well as Thint, the local arm of the French arms and electronics manufacturer Thales, appeared to face charges of corruption and fraud (corruption only for Thint).
But the state team – led by Billy Downer, SC, and Anton Steynberg, with Wim Trengove, SC, appearing with them on this occasion only – asked for an adjournment of the trial until some time next year.
The state’s reasons for an adjournment were that neither a full indictment nor forensic report was ready and that it would take the defence a “long time� to study them when they were completed; appeal court judgments related to last year’s search and seizure raids on the premises of Zuma, Thint and Zuma’s attorneys had not been heard, so the state did not know which material might be legally “admitted�; and the appeal of Schabir Shaik, the Durban businessman, out of whose conviction on corruption the trial of Zuma and Thint clearly flowed, had not been heard.
The defence teams – led by Kemp J Kemp, SC for Zuma and Kessie Naidu, SC for Thint – not only opposed the adjournment application. They also asked the court to strike the case off the roll either completely or temporarily.
The nub of their argument, based on the past five years of interaction between the prosecuting authorities and Zuma, was that justice delayed is justice denied.
Msimang told both parties to go away until TuesdaySeptember 5, when they could argue their applications before him. In the interim they were to send in affidavits and heads of argument related to their arguments. And since August 14, the affidavits – some quite venomous and directed against individuals rather than arguments – have been flying back and forth. . .
D-day approaches for Jacob Zuma
