Zuma team to ask for discharge

Published Mar 27, 2006

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Jacob Zuma's lawyers start their fight on Monday to get the rape charge against the ANC deputy president discharged.

Zuma's Durban counsel Kemp J Kemp will bring an application before the Johannesburg High Court on Monday.

He will argue that the State has failed to produce evidence that Zuma committed rape and Kemp said he would also ask Judge Willem van der Merwe to declare inadmissible some of the evidence by two of the investigating officers.

Commissioner Norman Taioe and Supt Peter Linda have testified that Zuma had pointed out a guest bedroom in his Johannesburg home when asked to show them the "alleged scene of the crime".

They also testified that when Zuma was asked what happened in his bedroom, he replied "nothing".

A 31-year-old HIV-positive woman alleges Zuma raped her in this guest bedroom on the ground floor in November last year. Zuma, who has pleaded not guilty to the charge, instead says they had consensual sex in his bedroom on the first floor. Both said a condom was not used.

Kemp has told the court that Zuma and his attorney Michael Hulley, who was present when the policemen questioned his client, would deny that Zuma had pointed out the guest bedroom and that he had said nothing happened in his bedroom.

He has accused the policemen of not following basic police procedure and they in turn have said Hulley was with Zuma throughout the questioning and should have warned him of his rights.

Meanwhile, the News24 website reports that Zuma has appointed a legal team under a former Conservative Party MP to fight his "crucifixion by the media".

It said Zuma had appointed Jurg Prinsloo, an advocate, and Wycliffe Mothuloe, a Johannesburg attorney, to investigate the possibility of defamation charges against newspapers.

Prinsloo is a former Conservative Party MP for Roodepoort and the party's justice spokesperson.

He represented Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Waluz in their trial for the murder of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.

Zuma apparently has had enough of the media.

The African National Congress's deputy president and his supporters have complained that the media formed part of a plot to stop him from becoming South Africa's next president.

In an interview with the Sowetan on Friday, Zuma accused former minister Penuell Maduna and former director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka of calling on the press to help destroy him.

This interview will be the first subject of the new legal team's brief.

A letter was sent by Mothuloe at the weekend to the editor of Sowetan, Thabo Leshilo, in which Zuma denied that he had compared himself to Jesus during the interview.

The headline for the interview read: "I'm like Christ - Zuma". Zuma was quoted as saying the newspapers wanted to crucify him like Christ. - Sapa

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