Jacob Zuma’s first statement to police during the rape probe against him made no mention of consensual sex he has claimed he had with his accuser, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Tuesday.
Police Commissioner Norman Taioe also told the court that when he asked Zuma to point out where the alleged rape took place, Zuma took him to a guest bedroom at his Johannesburg home.
Zuma says he had consensual sex with the woman in his bedroom on the first floor. She says she was raped in the guest bedroom on the ground floor.
Taioe, who heads Gauteng’s detective services, said he and a colleague, Superintendent Peter Linda, went to Zuma’s home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, on November 10, eight days after the alleged rape. They waited some time for Zuma to finish a meeting and he finally emerged with his lawyer Michael Hulley.
They gave the police officers a prepared statement. The document read to the court says: ”I protest my innocence and vehemently deny the charge.”
It says on the night of the alleged rape, Zuma and the woman had supper with some other people and later that evening, after he had finished his work, ”we again began to converse and share in each other’s company privately”.
When asked by Zuma’s lawyer Kemp J Kemp what Taioe thought Zuma had meant by this, he said he did not interpret it as them having sex.
The statement says she retired to her room at about 11.30pm and spent the night there.
Kemp accused Taioe of attempting to trap Zuma when asking him where the alleged crime scene was. However, Taioe defended himself saying Hulley was with Zuma at that visit.
Kemp wanted to know exactly how Taioe had asked Zuma to show him the crime scene, and under persistent cross-questioning Taioe said: ”I said, ‘Show me the alleged crime scene,’ and he showed me the guest bedroom. I then understood it to be the crime scene.”
He said when in the guest bedroom he asked Zuma: ”Is this where it happened?” Zuma replied that it was.
‘Forgot’ reply
Taioe said he forgot to put Zuma’s reply into his statement on the matter.
”When I wrote the statement it slipped my mind,” he said.
A visibly annoyed Kemp asked Taioe why he had not ”bothered” to make a follow-up statement to add this information. He replied he did not think to do so.
At Kemp’s request he agreed to bring his crime-scene notes, if he still had them, to court on Wednesday.
Kemp asked Taioe why he did not get linen from Zuma’s house on November 4 — the day the woman laid the rape charge — or on the following day.
Kemp said he always sees on television that the first 48 hours are crucial when doing crime investigations and wanted to know why they went to the house about 10 days later.
”You just can’t go to that house without making arrangements,” said Taioe. These had to be made through the police’s VIP protection services.
He spoke to a Commissioner Tshabalala who informed him he would make arrangements for this. Taioe said he did not tell Tshabalala this was urgent.
He was told to meet Zuma at Nkandla, and when he finally saw Zuma, he said he needed access to the house. He did not tell him that he wanted the sheets.
Kemp said: ”What on earth made you think that the same sheets were going to be on the same bed after 10 days?” He replied that he did not think that.
Meeting
Kemp asked Taioe why he decided to ”interfere” with a meeting that the woman and her mother had with a lawyer facilitated for them by KwaZulu-Natal finance minister Zweli Mkhize.
He replied that he had heard on the radio the woman had completed a withdrawal-of-charges statement and wanted to ask her about it.
He considered withdrawing charges to be defeating the ends of justice, he told the court. ”I wanted to know who is this lawyer, why is he talking to her.”
Earlier in the day, the complainant’s best friend testified the complainant would never have had consensual sex with Zuma.
Nomthandazo Msibi, known as Kimi, said that the day after the alleged rape her friend told her: ”I hate that man, I never want to see him again,” referring to Zuma.
She was worried because she had never heard her speak about him in this way.
Asked by state lawyer Herman Broodryk to explain the relationship of people who had known each other in exile, she said that in exile, children knew adults as comrades and when they came back to South Africa the men were known as ”uncles”.
Msibi said she would never have been able to speak to a blood relative about sexual needs, but she would be able to speak to another older person about taboo things.
The HIV-positive complainant testified last week that before the alleged rape, Zuma had a conversation about her sexual needs and the fact that she should have a companion.
Msibi, who works in the same office as Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils, testified the complainant had asked her to phone Kasrils to discuss her security concerns. Msibi told her she would rather not because of the professional relationship she had with Kasrils. The complainant instead phoned the minister.
She told Kemp she was aware there was a pro- and anti-Zuma camp. However, she chose not to answer which camp she thought Kasrils was in.
”My boss is my boss. I don’t look at him in terms of what camp he is in,” she said.
The trial continues on Wednesday. — Sapa