Judgement in the Jacob Zuma trial will start in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday May 8. ”The court will now adjourn and judgement will be delivered 9am, Monday the 8th,” Judge Willem van der Merwe said on Tuesday.
It will be broadcast live on television and radio. Van der Merwe said he did not know at this stage how long delivering the judgement would take.
Zuma shook hands with his lawyer Kemp J Kemp and was then whisked down Pritchard Street in his convoy.
He is accused of raping a 31-year-old HIV-positive woman, who considers herself a family friend, at his home on November 2 last year. He says they had consensual sex. Both testified that a condom was not used.
In the closing moments of the case, Kemp repeated that proving mens rea, ”a guilty mind” was a ”large problem” in the case.
The woman conceded in her testimony that Zuma might have thought she had consented, Kemp argued while trying to prove the absence of mens rea.
Zuma would have had no idea that she would not scream, and instead freeze, he said.
”The SMSs, everything … it is really the conduct of a person who is thinking, ‘I am not sure if this is rape.”’
He said her version of events ”must be shown of its dubious features”.
Kemp said the state had to prove Jacob Zuma was HIV-positive and that was why he could allegedly rape the HIV-positive woman.
Kemp said state prosecutor Charin de Beer had no factual basis to argue that Zuma was HIV-positive and had therefore allegedly raped the woman without using a condom.
If Zuma were HIV-positive, then the state’s argument that the complainant could never have had sex without a condom due to the risk of re-infection would also have to apply to Zuma.
Maybe Zuma should not have had unprotected sex, but that did not mean he raped the woman, Kemp said.
Kemp told Van der Merwe the state would have to prove Zuma was HIV-positive and until this was proven, it had to be assumed he was negative.
Zuma’s lawyers would not allow him to tell the court that he was negative without having the proof.
The document stating Zuma’s HIV status had no value of proof in itself and people who had conducted the test would have had to be called in to testify.
The prosecution could have asked to have seen the document. It could even have asked for permission to draw blood from Zuma.
The complainant had not given the slightest suggestion that Zuma was HIV-positive during her testimony.
Kemp said Zuma’s negative status was in his favour because if there had been any struggle as there normally was during rape, this would have heightened the chances of him contracting HIV.
On Zuma’s testimony that he had a shower immediately after having intercourse with the woman to lessen his chances of contracting HIV, Kemp said this was not unusual.
He told Van der Merwe if there was a bucket containing HIV fluid and a Kruger Rand was at the bottom of it, the person getting the Kruger Rand would wash their hands afterwards. ”No one except a complete moron will not go and wash themselves afterwards.”
Everyone knows that even doctors who were in contact with an HIV-positive person wash themselves afterwards.
On police investigations into the alleged rape, Kemp accused a commissioner of attempting to trap Zuma. ”If it happened the way you said, you set a trap,” he said.
He was referring to when Zuma allegedly pointed to the guest room after being asked by Commissioner Norman Taioe to point out the ”alleged scene of the crime”.
Kemp, who has asked Van der Merwe to declare Taioe and investigating officer Superintendent Peter Linda’s evidence inadmissible, said the photographer at the house had stated that Taioe had asked to see the guest room.
Kemp concluded that Zuma was consistent in his version and did not contradict himself.
The state had not established that Zuma had lied and he was only circumspect when testifying about political matters.
Kemp, who did a comparison between the two versions of the incident, said Zuma’s was the correct one as there were no inherent improbabilities.
The trial was briefly interrupted in the morning when a woman in the public gallery asked the court for help, saying she had been raped.
She told Van der Merwe: ”I am tired of being raped, and I am tired of being abused.” The details were not exactly clear, but she mentioned the year 2002, the Zion Christian Church and six members of the church.
Van der Merwe asked investigating officer Taioe to listen to her story, and report back to Charin de Beer, the state prosecutor in the trial.
”You are in good hands,” he said gently as the woman was led away. — Sapa