Durban

A critically ill awaiting-trial prisoner at Durban’s Westville prison has been denied anti-retrovirals (ARVs) because he does not have an identity document, a prisoners’ rights group said on Tuesday. Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela denied the claims, however.

Three of the country’s top legal minds will face off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday in the corruption trial of former deputy president Jacob Zuma. While Zuma believes his case should be thrown out of court, the state is arguing that he should stand trial to prevent ”clouds of suspicion” hanging over the man who could be elected president.

Jacob Zuma will have to provide hard evidence of a political conspiracy against him if he wants his corruption trial dismissed, the state said in heads of argument filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. The state argued that ”if the first accused [Zuma] wishes to establish that a political conspiracy exists, he is required to adduce evidence to this effect”.

Public interest ”demands” that former deputy president Jacob Zuma is not granted a permanent stay of prosecution, the state argued in heads of argument filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday. The state said: ”We submit that there is a compelling public interest in ensuring that the guilt or innocence of the accused is judicially determined after a full and open hearing.”

An appeal against a Durban High Court order to expedite antiretroviral treatment at Westville prison does not amount to a ”constitutional crisis” but is an attempt to alert the court to an ”administrative burden”, the government said on Thursday. A statement from the Government Communications and Information Service read: ”There is no constitutional crisis in this country … ”

Two women died and one was seriously injured when a fire broke out in a building housing the offices of a security company in Durban on Thursday. ER24 spokesperson Neil Noble said three people were injured in the blaze that swept through the top floor of the one-storey building.

The Department of Correctional Services on Wednesday rejected a Durban High Court judge’s assertion that it is responsible for a potentially ”grave constitutional crisis”. ”The department does not agree that the decision to appeal against the orders of the Durban High Court was intended to create a constitutional crisis,” the department said in a statement.

Pierre Moynot, the executive of the French arms manufacturer charged alongside Jacob Zuma for corruption, may have incriminated himself when he testified in the Schabir Shaik trial. The defence team for French arms dealer Thint said that when Moynot testified in the Shaik trial ”he [was] not warned by the state that the questions he will be asked may incriminate him”.

Jacob Zuma would have been ”exonerated” had he been charged alongside his financial adviser Schabir Shaik, Zuma’s defence team claimed in its heads of argument filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday. Had they been able to do so, they would have cross-examined Shaik.

It could have been 1995 all over again … a flashback to the soaking France-South Africa World Cup semifinal as the rain pelted down in buckets ahead of the match between the Sharks and Western Province in Durban on Friday evening. By halftime 32 mm of rain had been measured at the ground.

Former deputy president Jacob Zuma on Tuesday said he had been ”tried and convicted” together with convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik even though he had never appeared in the dock. Zuma on Tuesday filed papers in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in response to the state’s replying affidavits that seek a postponement of his corruption trial.

The former head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Bulelani Ngcuka, did everything in his power to protect the reputation of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, according to an affidavit filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. In the document, Ngcuka denies allegations of involvement in any political conspiracy against Zuma.

An administrator is set to take control of the troubled Durban University of Technology on Wednesday, the national Department of Education said in a statement. The current dean of the faculty of education of the University of Pretoria, Professor Jonathan Jansen, will be the administrator for the next six months.

South Africa is sure to break into the top 10 international conference destinations by 2010, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Monday. Speaking at the national conference of the Southern African Association for the Conference Industry, he said conferencing and its allied products continue to thrive.

Lectures were suspended indefinitely at the University of Zululand on Tuesday after protesting students failed to heed an ultimatum to return to class. The university’s management decided to close down the university after a student meeting in the morning failed to resolve the crisis at the troubled institution.

A man was burnt to death when his nephew crashed their car on Saturday night in what an eyewitness described as ”a race with a tow-truck”. ER24 spokesperson Neil Noble said the Ford Sierra hit a traffic sign on the M41, crossed the median and collided with oncoming traffic. The car caught alight on impact.

A memorandum was handed over to the University of Zululand’s rector and vice-chancellor, Rachel Gumbi, on Friday by students protesting against a ”lack of accommodation” and about many of the university’s courses ”not being nationally recognised”. There was no disruption to lectures at the university.

A woman jumped off a Durban beach pier with her three-year-old son strapped to her back in an apparent suicide bid on Wednesday night. Inspector Tray Allison of the police search and rescue unit said fishermen on the Wedge Beach Pier saw the woman climb over the railings and jump into the water.

Fund-raising efforts to ensure that Zuma’s legal fees are paid will be ”doubled”, as more than the previously estimated R12-million may be needed. In a personal affidavit filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, Zuma said he was ”effectively unemployed and quite unemployable”.