Jacob Zuma's hopes of avoiding prosecution for fraud and corruption have suffered a devastating blow, with the ANC deputy president losing all four of his legal battles with the state this morning.
It took Supreme Court of Appeal judge Ian Farlan just three minutes to negate Zuma's hopes of keeping potential evidence against him and French arms company Thint out of the state's hands.
While not confirming if and when they will recharge Zuma and Thint, the National Prosecuting Authority is seeing this victory as a "vindication" of the manner in which it investigated the presidential hopeful.
"This is one of the major hurdles that we needed to overcome, which means that we are on course," NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said on Thursday after the ruling was read out.
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Zuma and his current and former attorneys, Michael Hulley and Julekha Mohamed, had won two crucial victories against the state in the Johannesburg and Durban High Courts previously, by having the August 2005 warrants used to raid their homes and offices declared invalid.
But their luck was not to hold.
The validity of the Scorpions' warrants against Zuma, Hulley and Mohamed divided the appeal court's five judges and produced 10 differing rulings - but the majority of the court was not convinced that they were unlawful.
Zuma now faces a far bigger charge sheet than he did when, following the conviction of his former financial adviser, he was charged with fraud and corruption in 2005.
While the state's case against Shabir Schaik focused on payments made to Zuma during and prior to 2001, the disputed raid documents are understood to show that these payments continued until at least August 2005.
It is further believed that the payments amount to at least R3,5-million.
Hulley on Wednesday told The Star that his client was not optimistic about the appeal court's ruling he would receive this morning.
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