It is a popular pastime for commentators to muse about Jacob Zuma, the previous criminal cases against him, his supposed presidential ambitions and his political activities. But in this sea of opinion it is difficult to find commentary based on fact. And an even-handed assessment of Zuma’s actions or decisions is virtually impossible to find.
Take, for example, Zuma’s decision to oppose the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) application for access to the 14 documents seized in Mauritius in 2001. All the analysis by the media, including the Mail & Guardian, has concluded that Zuma was ”desperate to stop investigators getting access to those documents”.
”What has he got to hide? To me that suggests he’s guilty,” wrote Sam Sole, quoting an unnamed man in a Durban print shop.
Although this case has been widely reported, Zuma’s side of the story has not. As a result, lay people who do not read the court documents have been persuaded by the media that Zuma has adopted all manner of legal theatrics to prevent the NPA from gaining ”explosive” information in Mauritius.
This is false and misleading: all these documents have been in the NPA’s possession since 2001. They were used in the Schabir Shaik trial and are now public documents, including the diary of Alain Thetard, which many seem to think is the ”smoking gun”.
The nub of the Mauritius matter is this: the NPA acted unlawfully when it acquired duplicate copies of the documents. It now needs to use these documents in a case against Zuma and wants to access the documents legitimately — as if in some fantastic way this would annul its unlawful behaviour. The media, it would seem, would like Zuma to celebrate the marauding ways of the NPA and allow it to get away with breaching the sovereignty of another country and Zuma’s rights.
The order granted by the Supreme Court of Mauritius in October 2001 permitting the raid on the offices of French arms company Thint did not allow the Mauritian authorities to hand over any documents to their South African counterparts. The NPA’s Billy Downer nevertheless left Mauritius with the copies.
In March 2003, Thint entered an injunction before the Mauritian Supreme Court for the return of the documents. The injunction stated that none of these materials, whether copies or originals, were to be ”communicated or sent to the South African authorities”. Downer claims he did not know of this injunction order and was only made aware of it in November 2004.
The state successfully made the case for the documents to be admissible in the Shaik trial, but since Zuma was not a party to that case, he never had the opportunity to challenge the admissibility.
In its relentless crusade to prosecute Zuma, the NPA has committed several unlawful acts and has repeatedly breached his rights. Regarding the Mauritius documents, the state has what has been described in Zuma’s court papers as ”dirty hands”.
This application to the Durban High Court was an attempt to get a South African judge to persuade the Mauritian authorities to remove the embargo on the documents and allow the NPA to acquire the originals legally. Judge Phillip Levinsohn ruled in favour of the state’s application and the matter is now before the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Whatever that court decides, the issue is not about Zuma trying to conceal evidence because there is no information in the documents that is unknown. The common thread in Zuma’s legal defence strategy is to expose and challenge the illegal and abusive acts of the state. The unlawful multiple raids by the Scorpions on Zuma, his lawyers and associates in August 2005 revealed the state’s desperation to find a tangible shred of evidence against him.
None of the facts of the corruption case against Zuma have been contested and proven in court, including the entry into Thetard’s diary, because of the NPA’s litany of bungles. But, if this matter is to be concluded, the state must begin abiding by and respecting the Constitution, the laws of this country and those of other sovereign states.
In a world where war can be waged simply because the powerful can deceive others into believing in the existence of weapons of mass destruction, we should be careful of political agendas we do not understand.
Ranjeni Munusamy, a communications consultant, runs the Friends of Jacob Zuma website