Cape Town -
Acting national prosecutions boss Nomgcobo Jiba has said she can’t be held accountable for the failure to comply with a Supreme Court of Appeal order relating to the handover of the so-called Zuma spy tapes.
In court papers filed this week, Jiba said a full transcript of the secret recordings had been in the possession of President Jacob Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, since April 25.
Her affidavit says Hulley believes the transcript should remain under wraps.
Jiba suggests it be left to the court to decide whether they should be produced.
Attorney Mervyn Smith, acting for the DA, said on Thursday that it was “a scandal” that the National Prosecuting Authority was allowing itself to be “led by the nose”. The NPA had done nothing for months to comply with the appeal court’s order, he said.
The intercepted conversations were the basis for the decision to drop charges of racketeering, corruption, fraud and money-laundering against Zuma shortly before the 2009 elections.
Then-acting prosecutions chief Mokotedi Mpshe quoted from them extensively when he announced the decision.
A full transcript of the tapes has not been made public.
The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on March 12 that Mpshe’s decision was reviewable – and ordered the NPA to produce a record of the “documents and materials” relevant to the review, including any that informed Mpshe’s decision.
The court order allowed for representations made on Zuma’s behalf – and responses to them – to be excluded if disclosing them would breach confidentiality.
It gave the NPA 14 days to hand over the “reduced record”.
Last month, the DA launched an application in the Pretoria High Court for an order compelling the NPA to comply and for Jiba to show why she was not in contempt. Zuma is a respondent in the action.
“It is inconceivable there are no internal NPA memoranda, reports or minutes of meetings dealing with the contents of the recordings and/or the transcript itself,” the DA’s attorneys told the NPA in June.
Jiba in her affidavit says such documents do exist, but “are inextricably linked with the recordings or transcripts”. All dealt with representations on behalf of Zuma “on the basis of confidentiality”.
Political Bureau