African National Congress president Jacob Zuma’s lawyers will make representations about his pending corruption prosecution to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Friday.

Zuma’s attorney, Michael Hulley, said yesterday the meeting was a “follow-up” to written representations sent to the NPA last Tuesday.

The content of Zuma’s representations to the NPA has not been disclosed. But in an affidavit before Judge Chris Nicholson in the Pietermaritzburg High Court last year, Zuma referred to “some very confidential aspects involving third parties *1 which explain features which the NPA currently regards as incriminatory”.

Zuma said in his court papers that he had “important and weighty facts, circumstances and considerations to put before a national director of public prosecution”.

He was referring to the representations he had hoped to make to acting national director of public prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe.

Zuma said it was “not proper” to put these facts before Judge Nicholson.

He also gave an example of “the type of representation which can legitimately, and will likely be, submitted”. This was that a letter, signed by Zuma, was actually written by former president Thabo Mbeki.

The letter was written to the former chairman of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts, Gavin Woods. It said there was no need for the “Heath Unit” to be involved in an investigation into the arms deal.

In his affidavit, Zuma said the NPA referred to the letter in its original indictment against him, before the case was struck off the roll by Judge Herbert Msimang.

It was also part of the indictment against Schabir Shaik ­ now convicted of fraud. With Sapa

With acknowledgements to Franny Rabkin and Business Day.