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By Staff Reporter 
8h ago
Johannesburg – Former President Jacob Zuma will not appear Tuesday when his corruption case returns to Pietermaritzburg, but Zuma has expressed disappointment in a statement issued by his foundation on Sunday in which he said he is “more than ready for the start of the Arms Deal Essay. “
The foundation said that the National Prosecutor’s Office (NPA) together with the media accused Zuma of applying delaying tactics. “However, it is the NPA that is not ready to proceed when asked by President Zuma to present his case against him. The silence of the media in this regard is deafening. “
The Foundation said it was disappointed with the way that “the NPA seemed to get away with it in our courts and our courts seem powerless to reign in the NPA.”
“This is so because there seems to be a different jurisprudence applied by our courts when it comes to President Zuma. In general, our courts should remove the matter from the list until the NPA and Thales have finalized their dispute. However, it appears that such a call would be a waste of time, as our courts would never make a decision in a way that would be perceived as ‘being soft on Zuma’.
“The Foundation calls on the NPA and our courts to treat President Zuma like any other citizen and litigant. The Foundation asks the NPA to start the trial immediately, since it always stated that it was ready to try President Zuma ”.
The long-standing corruption case has its roots in the multi-billion dollar state arms purchase of the late 1990s.
During the acquisition, the state alleges that Zuma pocketed bribes from the French arms company Thales. As a result, he accused him along with the French arms company Thales of corruption and organized crime.
But in the last appearance in June this year, Thales put a brake on the work of the National Tax Authority (NPA) when it announced that it had filed a judicial challenge to have the extortion charges against it dropped.
That effectively forced the matter to be postponed until a court rules on the challenge.
With a postponement expected on Tuesday, the parties apparently agreed that Zuma need not be in court.
Zuma’s investigating attorney, Eric Mabuza, told Independent Media on Sunday that it was a mutual agreement between all parties involved in the trial.
“The (former) president will not be in court, nor will we be in court … The parties agreed to postpone,” Mabuza said.
However, the director of the prosecution office in KwaZulu-Natal, defender Elaine Zungu said: “The matter is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8 (2020). Any changes to it will be communicated accordingly.”
As the matter progresses, Mabuza insisted that they are ready to begin their defense on behalf of Zuma.
“We have always said that we are ready to begin the trial. It is the state that is clearly not ready,” Mabuza said.
The bishop of Durban and a senior ANC politician Vusi Dube said that, unlike in the past, no supporters would attend the trial.
Political Bureau
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