Cape Town - Former president Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday termed claims in court documents implicating him in a plot to thwart Jacob Zuma’s political rise as dated.
He hinted that he might take legal action once he had access to the affidavit authored by Asset Forfeiture Unit head Willie Hofmeyr as part of the National Prosecuting Authority’s answering documents in the Democratic Alliance’s court challenge to the 2009 decision to withdraw criminal charges against Zuma.
“Former president Mbeki has noted media reports attributing certain statements to Advocate William Hofmeyr regarding an old allegation that the former president was party to a political conspiracy against President Jacob Zuma some years ago,” his spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said.
He added that Mbeki would “determine the appropriate course of action once he has had access to the affidavit (in terms of the rules of the courts)”.
“For now, it is worth recalling that the allegation of a political conspiracy to which former President Mbeki was supposedly party was dealt with in the Supreme Court of Appeal judgment: ‘National Director of Public Prosecutions Vs Zuma (573/08) [2009] ZA SCA1 (12 January 2009).'”
Hofmeyr wrote in the affidavit submitted to the Gauteng High Court on Tuesday that former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy sought to manipulate the timing of Zuma’s indictment to favour Mbeki in their battle for the presidency of the ANC.
The case to which Mbeki referred was a successful appeal against a judgment by Judge Chris Nicholson setting aside a decision by the NPA to charge Zuma.
The SCA ruled that Nicholson’s findings of political meddling were inappropriate.
ANA