If the rape allegation against Jacob Zuma was part of a political conspiracy against him, it was poorly planned, the state prosecutor told the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday.
”If there was a political conspiracy, it wasn’t the most well-planned conspiracy,” said Herman Broodryk. ”One would have expected her [the complainant] to storm out of the house and lay this complaint with blood flowing all over her face and several bruises and a terrible story to tell.”
”She did not even have a real injury,” Broodryk told the court.
He questioned where a person could be found to carry out such a conspiracy then spend five days in a witness box facing cross-examination.
Zuma’s legal team had not raised the possibility of a political conspiracy as a fact, but just raised it and then ”kept their options open”, Broodryk noted.
Last year, Zuma was dismissed as deputy president when corruption charges were brought against him. The rape charge followed. He and his supporters have claimed a political conspiracy to stop him from becoming the next president of South Africa.
Broodryk was opposing a defence application for Zuma’s discharge under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act.
Zuma’s lawyers argue that the state has not proved the complainant was raped.
At the same time, Zuma’s legal team believes his defence was compromised by his accuser’s refusal to be assessed by one of its psychologists.
”The state had Dr [Merle] Friedman assess her and she cooperated fully with Dr Friedman … we were denied an opportunity,” Zuma’s lawyer Kemp J Kemp told the court.
He conceded that the complainant had the right to refuse, but believed her refusal to make evidence available to the defence must ”enter the picture”. This affected its ability to cross-examine her.
The state had put considerable store on Friedman’s evidence of ”freezing”, Kemp argued, referring to Friedman’s explanation of why the woman did not resist the alleged rape.
In a case like this, the psychological state of mind was clearly an issue. ”It is no different to when one is denied access to a witness statement.”
Kemp also argued that earlier testimony by two police officers on Zuma’s alleged pointing out of the guestroom as the crime scene should be ruled as inadmissible.
The woman claims to have been raped in the guestroom of Zuma’s Johannesburg home, but Zuma maintains they had consensual sex in his bedroom.
Gauteng head of detective services, Commissioner Norman Taioe, has told the court that when he arrived at Zuma’s Johannesburg home and asked Zuma to point out the scene of the alleged crime, Zuma pointed to the guestroom.
Kemp believed this testimony should be inadmissible because Zuma was not read his rights when the police arrived. Zuma’s lawyer, who was present at the time, had denied the pointing out.
If Taioe had followed basic procedure and included this exchange in his police report, there would be no disputes, Kemp told the court.
The trial continues on Wednesday. — Sapa