Former president Jacob Zuma is being sued by the lead prosecutor in the corruption case against him – for claiming, among other things, that advocate Billy Downer was a liar too driven by his hatred of him to be objective about his case.
Downer has asked the Pietermaritzburg High Court to remove more than a dozen “scandalous and vexatious” and “untrue and unwarranted” statements Zuma has made about him in his application for a permanent stay of his corruption prosecution.
He wants the court to order that Zuma, whose state funding of his defence costs has been cut, pay the punitive legal costs of his application.
“First, without any substantiation, Zuma alleges that I hate him, I am blinded by an obsession with his conviction, I seem nostalgic about the manner in which apartheid prosecutions authorities deal[t] with those they considered guilty or undesirable, and that persons within the NPA may have apartheid withdrawal symptoms,” Downer states.
He says the “state is prejudiced by [these] parts of Zuma’s replying affidavit ... because they amount to reckless and odious posturing apparently aimed at condemning the public’s perception of the integrity of the NPA and particularly the person responsible for conducting the prosecution (i.e. me)”. In Zuma’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution, which is his last bid to stop his pending trial for racketeering, corruption, fraud and tax evasion from going ahead, he also accuses Downer of “astounding duplicity” and having “an aversion to the truth”.
Downer says these claims are completely untrue and defamatory, and must be removed from Zuma’s court papers. Downer was the prosecutor responsible for the corruption conviction of Zuma’s former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, for keeping the then deputy president on a corrupt retainer that ensured he would do his bidding.
Shaik was also convicted of facilitating a R500,000-a-year bribe for Zuma from French arms company Thales, in exchange for Zuma’s political protection from any potential investigation into the multibillion-rand arms deal.
Downer was outspoken in his criticism of the 2003 decision by then prosecutions head Bulelani Ngcuka to not charge Zuma and Shaik at the same time, and the 2009 decision by former acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe to drop the case against Zuma – because of alleged political meddling.
Zuma has now accused Downer of trying to gloss over the contradictions in the NPA’s stance on his prosecution, and whether it should proceed.
“I believe he did this to magnify his deeply held belief that I should be prosecuted and convicted at all costs,” Zuma said.“It is difficult to appreciate how a prosecutor of his experience should ignore that my rights have grossly been violated by the NPA regardless of his obvious aversion towards me.”Downer has also asked the high court to strike out new allegations made by Zuma in his latest set of court papers, which include his claims that former president Thabo Mbeki and former justice minister Penuell Maduna tried to persuade him to exit politics at the time of the Shaik prosecution.Zuma has also alleged that Ngcuka told him in 2003 that, if Shaik pleaded guilty, there would be no case against him.Should the court not strike this evidence, Downer wants an opportunity for the state to address these claims under oath...