Cape Town - DA leader Helen Zille says she is “satisfied” what is on the spy tapes provides sufficient evidence to continue her party’s legal review of the dropping of over 700 corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma before the 2009 elections.
Last week, after a five-year court battle over the tapes – which contain 36 conversations over five months – Zille was handed the tapes in a sealed bag by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) at the North Gauteng High Court.
On Monday morning, Zille said she had read the transcripts but lawyers indicated the documents might only be revealed during the review application.
“Without revealing the contents, I am satisfied that the spy tapes provide sufficient evidence to continue our review application of the decision by the then acting national director of public prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe to withdraw the charges against President Zuma,” she said.
“Whatever the outcome (of the review) it will be a precedent-setting case with profound consequences for our democracy… Whatever the cynics may say, our primary motivation is not to defeat Jacob Zuma. It is not even to gain political advantage for the DA. Our primary aim is to expose the extent to which cadre deployment has undermined our institutions of state, and to bring this undemocratic practice to an end.”
The DA has pursued the review after Mpshe’s April 6, 2009 decision to with draw corruption charges against Zuma because the initial process of charging him was politically influenced.
In making the announcement to back up his statement, Mpshe made public parts of the classified tapes the National Intelligence Agency had obtained through phone taps of conversations between former prosecutions boss Bulelani Ngcuka and then Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy.
In 2003, Ngcuka did not bring charges against Zuma, saying although there was prima facie evidence it was not a case that could be won.
However, his successor Vusi Pikoli brought counts of corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering after Judge Hillary Squires convicted Zuma’s then financial adviser Schabir Shaik of corruption.
These charges were dismissed in 2006 because the prosecution team was not ready, but refiled in late December 2007, a few days after Zuma was elected ANC president at the Polokwane national conference.
Ultimately, the charges were withdrawn on technical grounds by Judge Chris Nicholson in August 2008.
Instead of redrafting them, the NPA decided in April 2009 to withdraw all counts against Zuma, saying the processes was contaminated.
Zille said the DA would pursue the review of the decision to withdraw all charges against Zuma “with all we have”.
“Unless we succeed, our democracy will unravel. Cadre deployment to advance the interest of political parties, or their factions, inevitably leads to a failed state,” she said.
“The reason that the ANC got away with cadre deployment for so long was that they successfully disguised ‘state capture’ as ‘racial transformation’.
“Anyone who opposed cadre deployment could, therefore, easily be dismissed as ‘racist’.”
With the spy tapes being available – minus anything Zuma may have relied on in making his private, and confidential, representations to the NPA at the time – the DA must supplement their initial court review documentation by the first week of next month.
The president and the NPA have until mid-November to file their answering papers, to which the DA must respond by the end of November, setting the scene for the court hearing early next year, with a judgment to follow.
However, Zille explained that the legal battles could continue right up to the 2016 local government elections, should there be appeals.
Political Bureau