/ 6 April 2006

‘She was trying to seduce my father’

Jacob Zuma’s daughter believes his rape accuser had ulterior motives when she arrived at his Johannesburg home last November, the high court heard on Thursday.

”She was either trying to definitely seduce my father or get money from him,” said Duduzile Zuma (23), shortly before the court sitting was adjourned to Friday.

”I thought she was there to sponge off my dad. I just had that feeling when my dad introduced her as a comrade’s child … and they always need help.”

The well-spoken Ms Zuma said it was ”women’s intuition” which made her immediately feel suspicious and irritated by the woman’s presence at her father’s home in Forest Town in Johannesburg last November 2.

State prosecutor Herman Broodryk broke the tension of the cross examination by remarking in a booming voice ”that [women’s intuition] is a very dark and dangerous area for a man”.

Ms Zuma said they made small talk while preparing the evening meal of samp and beans, which the complainant said she loved. She felt that the woman had hinted about needing money to go to Swaziland to visit a relative who had been bitten by a snake.

Dinner was shared between Ms Zuma, her twin brother Duduzani, her father, the complainant and a woman friend of Zuma’s called Katusha.

They later watched the soapie ”Generations”.

She had told the court earlier that she became annoyed when the complainant turned down the offer of a lift home, and when she said she always travelled with a tooth brush and a pair of panties.

Ms Zuma took Katusha to where she way staying and when she returned the accuser came to Ms Zuma’s room and said she could not sleep and wanted a ”proper” book to read, not just a novel. They went to the library and selected The Princessa. The complainant then asked to talk to Zuma who was in the study next to the library.

Ms Zuma took her to the study where her father was working. Her father’s cellphone rang and Ms Zuma went back to her room, leaving the complainant ”dancing”, not knowing whether to stay or go. ”I left her there with thoughts running through my head, thinking what is she trying to do.”

Ms Zuma said: ”The way she was dressed [in a sarong], I thought she was definitely trying to entice my dad, to sleep with him”.

She saw the woman wore no underwear beneath the sarong, referred to throughout the trial as a kanga, and found it strange that she was ”upstairs practically half-naked”. The kanga covered her breasts and went down to her knees.

Ms Zuma had put on a gown when they went to the library.

She agreed with Broodryk it was not strange for a woman to sleep without underwear, but said: ”I don’t expect it to be done at someone else’s house.”

The short skirt that Zuma claims was used to entice him was also mentioned again, but in Ms Zuma’s version, it seemed part of the woman’s work attire.

Ms Zuma said she intended to keep an eye on the woman and later lay in her bed waiting to hear her footsteps from her father’s study back to the guest room. But she fell asleep within 10 minutes and was woken the next morning by the sound of the front door opening. She assumed it was the complainant leaving.

She conceded that she might not have heard the woman return to her room as the complainant was barefoot.

Johannesburg’s infamous Parktown prawns made a cameo appearance at the trial as Ms Zuma used a confrontation with one of the giant crickets to illustrate the alertness of police guarding her father. One night she and her sister found one in her room and their screams brought police to their door ”within two seconds”, whereupon they killed the insect.

Zuma’s counsel has repeatedly asked the complainant whey she did not scream for help from one of the police officers guarding Zuma. The complainant says she froze during the alleged rape.

Zuma denies a charge of rape but says the two had sex by consent.

Ms Zuma said she realised that something was wrong but only established that her father had been accused of rape when she read a news poster on her way to church on November 13.

”I was taken aback but I just thought, ‘Okay, it’s another hurdle we can get over’,” she replied to Broodryk when asked how she felt.

She and her father never discussed the rape allegation, and she never spoke about sex to her father. She could not remember where the complainant left The Princessa.

Zuma and the complainant differ on where the alleged rape took place — Zuma says they had consensual sex in his bedroom, she says she was raped in the guest room

She stood down and the trial was adjourned until Friday for a new witness. — Sapa