The office of the national police commissioner declined on Saturday night to respond to a Sunday Times newspaper report that former deputy president Jacob Zuma was being investigated on a rape charge.
”There’s nothing I can say. It’s against our policy to say whether a charge has been laid,” the spokesperson for National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Director Sally de Beer, said.
The Sunday Times reported in its early edition that ”top investigators” had been assigned to look into the matter and that the alleged victim was under protection.
The weekly newspaper quoted Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, as saying on Friday: ”I canvassed it with my client and he refuted the allegations out of hand. Mr Zuma is neither a suspect nor an accused.”
The woman, in her early thirties, reported the incident to police on Friday last week, two days after the alleged rape at Zuma’s home in Forest Town, Johannesburg.
She is a prominent Aids activist and comes from an African National Congress family that has had a close relationship with Zuma for many years, the Sunday Times reported.
Selebi was quoted in the report as saying: ”The only time people get to know about what we’re investigating is when people go to court.” — Sapa