Publication: Business Day Date: 2005-11-10 Reporter: Tim Cohen Reporter:

Lawyers Insist Zuma Will Not Accept State Plea Offer 

 

Publication 

Business Day
Date

2005-11-10

Reporter

Tim Cohen

Web Link

www.bday.co.za

 

Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s legal team has rejected “out of hand” *1 the prospect of a plea bargain in his corruption trial, setting the stage for a clash in court that is likely to increase political tension.

Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, said yesterday no formal discussion had taken place between the prosecution and the defence team about a plea bargain.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) clarified yesterday that no formal offer had been made.

This followed Business Day’s report yesterday that the Scorpions were open to a plea-bargain arrangement, which could possibly result in a noncustodial sentence.

Hulley said a plea-bargaining process would be premised on a guilty plea, possibly to a lesser charge than the main charge stated on the charge sheet. However, his instructions from Zuma were consistently that this was not his version of the events.

The NPA said neither it nor Zuma and his legal representatives had made any plea-bargain offers.

“Consequently, no negotiations or discussions have been held between the two parties regarding a plea bargain,” said the NPA’s spokesman, Makhosini Nkosi.

“Should the NPA receive a proposal from the relevant parties regarding a possible plea bargain, such a proposal would be considered on its own merits and in accordance with the relevant policies and legislation,” he said.

Prosecutors have never held out much hope that a plea-bargain arrangement would be accepted by Zuma, but nevertheless they have not ruled out the prospect of an out-of-court settlement of this nature.

The prospect of a plea-bargain arrangement held out hope of defusing a politically charged and divisive trial, but the firm approach adopted by Zuma’s legal team now appears to have made that prospect much less likely.

Zuma is due to appear in court on Saturday to formally face the charges, and his trial is then scheduled to be heard in July next year after having been referred to the high court.

After more than a week of newspaper leaks *1, the prosecuting authority yesterday released the provisional charge sheet, showing that Zuma will be joined in the dock by two subsidiaries of French arms company Thales, Thint Holdings and Thint Pty.

The main charge is corruption, and the facts presented in the charge sheet largely mirror charges brought successfully against Zuma’s financial adviser, Schabir Shaik. The charges differ, however, in one important respect in that the time period involved has been extended. In the Shaik trial, the period involved ended in April last year, but the corruption charges in the Zuma trial have been extended to this August.

The significance of this is that the applicable legislation changed in this period, bringing the much stricter Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act of 2004 into play. This makes the burden of proof easier for prosecutors.

The witness list is also very much the same as it was for the Shaik trial, and again includes such luminaries as Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille and Nelson Mandela’s former attorney, Ismail Ayob.

With acknowledgements to Tim Cohen and Business Day.


*1  Obviously the deal was not sweet enough; like abandon all charges, re-instate as DP, ensure there are no inhibitions for 2009 and, who knows, maybe then there'll be a quid pro quo?

*2 Actually four days (Friday midday to Tuesday afternoon), but the source is so obvious that maybe Judge Sisi can see it without it having to be reported to her.

But the reason the embargo was lifted was that after four days there was nothing left to keep secret, as well as that the SABC were threatening the NPA with legal action unless they were furnished with the thing which which others had already been furnished (albeit unofficially).