The streets outside the Johannesburg High Court were quiet ahead of the resumption of Jacob Zuma’s rape trial on Wednesday.
The streets, usually filled with singing, dancing, placard-waving protesters, showed only the usual early morning dash for the surrounding offices.
Police cars lined the streets which were cordoned off again. By 8.15am, police outnumbered a handful of curious onlookers.
Cross-examination of the woman who has alleged that the former deputy president raped her on November 2 last year, was expected to continue at 9.30am.
Zuma on Monday pleaded not guilty to the charge.
On Tuesday, Zuma’s accuser told the court that she had been raped before.
With a packet of tissues and two bottles of water at hand for the first day of her in-camera cross-examination, the woman spoke confidently as Zuma’s lawyer Kemp J Kemp began.
Wearing a blue suit and a red tie, Zuma sat quietly, with only the top of his head visible from the public gallery.
Kemp asked her to clarify the meaning of an SMS she sent her sisters after the alleged rape at his Johannesburg home on November 2 last year.
She told the court on Monday the SMS said: ”I am very uncomfortable, umalume [uncle] is starting to look at me sexually. There must be something in my drawers [panties]. The mothers must not know.”
She had not mentioned the rape because she was still digesting it and wanted to signal something was wrong, but could not bring herself to give details.
Kemp put it to her that the SMS meant there was something about her that attracted this kind of attention.
”I hope not. I see it as meaning something is wrong with me, or bad luck, but not that I’m doing something,” she replied.
The woman then said she wanted to explain something to the court. Her sister knew she had been raped before, and she would understand the context of the SMS.
She did not elaborate on the previous rape.
Kemp read an extract from a statement to the court by Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils on how she contacted him after the alleged rape.
She confirmed she had contacted Kasrils and told him she would lay a charge against Zuma.
She had asked ”Uncle Ronnie” for advice on ”safety issues”, particularly about the witness protection programme, she testified.
She made the call after speaking to her sister, who works in the Department of Intelligence.
Kemp questioned her asking him for advice, saying the witness protection discussion was not mentioned in Kasrils’ statement.
Kasrils had sympathised with her, but was not able to help and advised her to do what she thought was right, she said.
The woman told the court she had Kasrils’ telephone number because he was one of the people who had been trying to secure funding for her overseas studies.
Kemp’s cross examination covered a range of issues raised on Monday and he kept asking her why she was at Zuma’s house on November 2.
She denied that she had asked to spend the night there and that she had been offered a lift home by Zuma’s daughter. She said Zuma had invited her.
Kemp said the court would hear that Zuma’s daughter, who was in the house that night, felt it was inappropriate when the woman went to speak to Zuma in his study only dressed in a kanga (wrap) before she was allegedly raped.
Asked why she had not told police she had gone to see Zuma in his study, she said she had added many things not in her statement to the police in her consultation with the prosecution.
She also explained to the court how she always carried the kanga, panties, a facecloth and a toothbrush with her.
During the in camera proceedings she remained composed, occasionally taking sips of water from a bottle.
Her family, that of Zuma and the media sat quietly as she answered the questions.
The only laughter was when Kemp asked her whether she knew who had contracted HIV/Aids from.
”Unfortunately, the HIV test only tells you you are positive. It does not tell you where you got the virus from.”
In later questioning, she said she had only contacted one person who she thought she may have got the virus from.
This was after Kemp successfully applied to be allowed to question her on her previous sexual history.
In terms of Section 227 of the Criminal Procedure Act the sexual history of a rape complainant is not usually allowed without the judge’s permission.
State prosecutor Charin de Beer was granted similar permission on Monday and asked one question — when she had last had sexual intercourse. She answered July 2004. – Sapa