Zuma raids ... and the backlash

In the first extract from My Second Initiation by Vusi Pikoli, formerly the country’s top prosecutor, and Mandy Wiener, he tells how in the days after the Scorpions’ operation he considered he had been ‘thrown to the wolves’.

AS MY driver steered my official car out of the gardens of the president’s official residence in the Bryntirion estate in Pretoria and headed towards Luthuli House in the Johannesburg CBD, I was fully attuned to the gravity of the situation. You can’t charge the former deputy president of the country and not expect a political backlash. But perhaps it was my naiveteé that led me to think that it was not really a big deal, and that it was merely a decision made in the course of doing my job.

When I walked through the entrance of the ANC headquarters, there was this air of anticipation and when they saw me they knew: “Ha! The decision must have been taken now – he’s coming to see JZ.”

In the lift, people looked at me and said searchingly: “Hey, Comrade Vusi! What’s up?”

I laughed and said, “Hey, sharp … nothing.” Of course, they wanted to be the first to know what was happening.

When I walked into Zuma’s office he was sitting at his desk. My heart was beating fast as he stood up to greet me and offer me a seat. He closed the door and it was just the two of us in the room. Our greetings were cordial, as we mixed isiZulu, isiXhosa and English.

“Ee, Baba, Kunjani.”

“Hayi, Baba, sikhona.”

“Undi phatheleni?” – “What do you have for me?” he asked.

When I broke the news to him, it was in English. “We have taken a decision to charge you,” I told Zuma.

If he was shocked, he did not show it immediately. He didn’t ask me why we were charging him, and he didn’t try to offer an explanation. All he said was: “When you come to understand about these things, you’ll be surprised how people plot and plan against other people and you get to know what has actually happened ... the truth will finally surface.”

It was an emotional experience for me, conveying my decision to Zuma. You know, sitting across from a person who is going to be charged, informing him that you are going to do so, is not easy. This is a man who had been my leader in exile for many years, in the liberation movement as well as in government. But I was not emotional about the matter. For me, it had to happen and if there were sufficient grounds to charge him, then it had to be done.

Zuma did not look shaken; he remained cool and calm. I think he must have braced himself for the moment. It was a polite meeting and we (cordially acknowledged) ... one another as I left his office.

I returned to the NPA’s offices in Silverton and briefed Makhosini Nkosi who, in turn, called a press conference for 3pm that afternoon.

Nkosi said on camera: “This afternoon Advocate Pikoli informed Deputy President Zuma that he has decided to bring criminal charges against his person. Such charges will be constituted by, among others, two counts of corruption. Mr Zuma will in due course be informed of the date, time and place where he will have to avail himself at court to face these charges.”

An hour later, the presidency released a statement confirming that I had informed Mbeki about my decision to prefer charges against Zuma. I sat in my office, my phone didn’t ring and, as far as I can recall, I didn’t receive any messages from comrades responding to the decision.

When I got home that night, Girly and I didn’t even discuss it immediately. As a family, we didn’t feel the impact of my decisions as NDPP (national director of public prosecutions) immediately; that would only happen over time and in the future. Nine days after the decision to charge was announced, the ANC went into its national general Council (NGC) held at the University of Pretoria. The party’s national working committee had initially granted a request from Zuma to withdraw from its structures until his corruption trial had concluded, but the NGC then did an about-turn. This meant Zuma was not excused from party duties and continued as deputy president of the ANC.

That led to internal strife within the organisation as it became clear that some members would not accept the decision of the top six. Some delegates became rowdy and called Mbeki names and, for the first time, you could actually see the tide shift against the president. There was a state of anarchy, with members reverting to rudeness and divisions emerging. At that time NGC general secretary Kgalema Motlanthe spoke of the “cancer of corruption” eating away at the party, while some delegates wore T-shirts with the words “Innocent until proven guilty” and others chanted “Zuma is the real president”.

At the end of the NGC, Mbeki received a standing ovation during his speech in which he stated that it was imperative that Zuma be given an opportunity to defend himself against the charges.

He added that the NGC had correctly expressed its support for Zuma during “difficult and painful times”, but he also spoke out against corruption. At its closing press conference, the party gave a reassurance that it was emerging “much stronger and focused”.

As a member of any movement, you don’t want to see your organisation being ruptured as a result of whatever you might have done or participated in. But, at the same time, I felt that I had taken a decision that was correct and that right-thinking members of the ANC should have been happy that we had state institutions that were able to carry out their functions without fear or favour or prejudice. I was nevertheless in turmoil because of what was happening within the organisation. I couldn’t understand how there could be people who had no comprehension of how the law worked. It should have been easy to see that this decision was meant to strengthen the ANC, that the ANC was still occupying the moral high ground, that it did not matter who the personality was.

There was a sense of sadness within me, and that was exacerbated when I began to hear how people were insulting both the NPA and me personally. I was called a “reactionary”, amongst other things, and it pained me. This was an organisation I had served all my life, yet there were people who were supposed to be my comrades who regarded me as “selling out” by charging JZ.

I wasn’t resentful towards the ANC as an organisation. I believed this period would pass and balance would be restored.

In the weeks after Zuma’s first appearance in court, the team agreed that it was necessary for search-and-seizure operations to be carried out in order to gather further evidence. This was because a great deal might have taken place in the time between the (Schabir) Shaik trial and our decision to charge Zuma. There had also been restrictions on what we were able to do before he was charged.

The thinking was that the matter had not become static and the leads that emerged following Shaik’s conviction needed to be followed up. The investigators felt that people don’t generally destroy evidence overnight and that there are things that people might forget – a crumpled piece of paper in your office or a document that has not been properly shredded.

As a team, we discussed the matter at length and considered how we were going to go about it.

I was fully aware of the potential dangers the raids would pose and that they could provide serious security concerns. We had been granted warrants to search the seat of government, the Union Buildings in Pretoria, as well as the deputy president’s offices in Cape Town, Tuynhuys. Zuma’s Forest Town home and his Nkandla houses would also be searched, along with the offices of his lawyers Juleka Mahomed and Michael Hulley.

My worst fear was that there could be a shootout because several of these locations were guarded by the SAPS and VIP-protection security members.

In fact, I was so concerned that I personally informed Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla, the president and the new deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. The president, the minister, the deputy president and Frank Chikane all knew, because I told them personally.

And no one tried to dissuade me or to stop the raids from happening.

We were also on sound legal ground as the judge president of the then Transvaal Provincial Division, Judge Bernard Ngoepe, had scrutinised the warrants carefully before granting them personally.

What was also not known at the time is that I took Jackie Selebi into my confidence prior to the raids being executed. I was worried about Scorpions members going to Zuma’s homes, which were guarded by police officers. I went to Selebi the night before the raids took place, but I didn’t tell my guys about it because they would never have agreed to it. I just wanted to make absolutely sure that there would be no shootout.

Selebi agreed to ensure that his officers would cooperate with the DSO members.

At around 1am on 18 August 2005, I woke up, dressed quickly and was picked up from my home. I was driven to the Scorpions headquarters on the corners of Cresswell and Moreleta streets in Silverton to meet the team that would be conducting the operation.

There would be raids across the country that morning, in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg, and I felt they may need a morale-boosting pep talk ahead of the operation. I knew it would be difficult conducting a search-and-seizure operation on a high-profile person, the deputy president of the ANC, and I wanted to reassure them that they had my full support. I did not want them to think that the senior officials were sleeping when they were hard at work.

I stressed the importance of the searches and warned them against any personal contact situation. I went back to the office to monitor the operation.

Gerrie Nel, the Gauteng head of the DSO, was coordinating proceedings. He sat down with Chikane at the Union Buildings to establish how the raids would be conducted.

It was not a haphazard operation where people simply pounced unexpectedly, guns in hand. The media were also never tipped off, as far as I knew, and I was surprised when I heard on the radio that the Scorpions were at Zuma’s Forest Town home.

And, despite my warning to Selebi , there was indeed an ugly stand-off at the house. While members of the Scorpions were inside searching for evidence, four police officers, armed with automatic weapons, screeched up to the house in a black jeep with blue lights flashing. They rapped on the gate and demanded to be let in before they ran inside waving their guns. The road outside was blocked off and journalists watched as the DSO members and the VIP-protection men argued and my guys urged them to calm down. This was precisely what I had dreaded most and tried to avoid happening.

The people who were being aggressive were the policemen, telling the Scorpions “You are not going to come in here”, and generally being obstructive.

As the day crept towards early evening, Selebi phoned me and told me to call my men off at the Union Buildings. He instructed me to tell them to go home. He said I had warned him about Zuma’s home but not about the offices of the presidency. “No, no, no. I’m not going to do that,” I told him.

That was a low point for me, but I still had no regrets that we had carried out the operation. I’m also not sure that things could have been done differently without risking the achievement of our objectives.

I felt as though I had been thrown to the wolves. The raids drew serious criticism from many quarters. Trade union federation Cosatu reacted with venom. Zwelinzima Vavi called them “a full-frontal attack on our revolution itself ” and a “brutal persecution” of Zuma.

“The political prosecution of Jacob Zuma risks plunging our new democracy into turmoil. It has already begun to divide our movement,” he went on.

The General Council of the Bar also condemned the raids and called on the Scorpions to return everything seized from Zuma’s lawyers’ offices as they believed the operation violated the principle of attorney-client privilege.

We, of course, disagreed because the operations were perfectly legal and carried out on the strength of an order from the Pretoria High Court.

A couple of days after the operation, Minister Mabandla called me. She was angry with me about the Union Buildings raid. I reminded her that I had warned her about the operation and that she had agreed. I also had a meeting at my home with Selebi and (Billy) Masetlha on the Saturday following the event, during which they came hard at me for what we had done. They were extremely unhappy, but still I stood my ground.

My Second Initiation by Vusi Pikoli and Mandy Wiener (published by Picador) retails at R226 but will be on sale for R204 at Tuesday night’s dialogue. A second extract will run in Tuesday’s Dispatch