Johannesburg - Former president Jacob Zuma has put up the R1 million for security for costs demanded by prosecutor Billy Downer in his private prosecution for allegedly leaking his medical records to News24 journalist Karyn Maughan.
Zuma revealed that he had met Downer’s demand in his response to the application by the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) to join the prosecutor’s Pietermaritzburg High Court bid to set aside the erstwhile head of state’s summons in the private prosecution as amicus curiae (friend of the court).
“I have been asked by Downer to post a security bond of a R1m. I have despite my impecunious state complied with his demands,” he explained.
The former ANC president continued: “I certainly would never have asked my friends and family to assist me to deposit such a huge amount as a deposit if I did not wholeheartedly believe that my private prosecution of Downer will vindicate my rights”.
Zuma initially paid R90 000 as security but Downer described it as “woefully inadequate” and later demanded R1m after both parties had agreed on R500 000, a similar amount Maughan wanted.
Louis Liebenberg, a staunch Zuma supporter and diamond dealer, has deposited the R500 000 of the R1m the ex-president needed to pay into the trust account of his lawyer. Liebenberg himself is no stranger to controversy and is currently facing criminal prosecution by the SA Human Rights Commission after an audio clip emerged in which he makes crudely racist remarks.
The Constitutional Court this week dealt Zuma’s hopes of having Downer removed as a prosecutor in his fraud and corruption trial another blow when it refused him leave to appeal as his challenge has no reasonable prospects of success. Zuma was earlier unsuccessful twice at the Supreme Court of Appeal when he challenged Judge Piet Koen’s October 2021 ruling dismissing his special plea to have Downer removed as a prosecutor.
The former president accuses Downer of leaking his medical report to Maughan in contravention of the National Prosecuting Authority Act.
The HSF along with the Campaign for Free Expression, Media Monitoring Africa Trust and the SA National Editors Forum want to be admitted as friends of the court in Downer and Maughan’s challenge to the summons issued by Zuma.
Mpumalanga-based civil society organisation Democracy In Action also wanted to be admitted as a friend of the court to oppose the four groups’ submissions. Downer and Maughan’s application has been rescheduled for March 2023. According to the HSF, Downer’s application was to prevent Zuma from abusing the court’s processes by pursuing a baseless private prosecution, which it also described as an attempt to undermine the criminal justice system to achieve improper and ulterior purposes.
Zuma has described the HSF as “misguided busy bodies and celebrity litigants”. He has also listed President Cyril Ramaphosa, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola, State Security Agency director-general Thembisile Majola, former acting National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Mokotedi Mpshe, retired deputy NDPP Willie Hofmeyr and former Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana, among his 23 witnesses.
But the HSF maintained that six of Zuma’s witnesses were either not linked to his private prosecution of Downer and Maughan or entirely irrelevant. Judge Sidwell Mngadi reserved judgment in the organisations’ applications to be admitted as friends of the court this week.