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Former President Jacob Zuma on the Zondo commission.
PHOTO: Sharon Seretlo, Gallo Images
- Former President Jacob Zuma “will exercise his right to say nothing” if the “environment” of the Zondo commission is not right for him.
- His legal counsel has asked Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo to step down from the commission.
- Zuma sees the commission as “the grave to bury him.”
If the Vice President of the Supreme Court, Raymond Zondo, does not create an environment in which the former president accused of corruption Jacob Zuma feels comfortable (recusing himself as president of the commission), Zuma will “exercise his right to say nothing,” says the lawyer from Zuma, defender Muzi. Sikhakhane.
On Monday morning, the judicial commission of investigation of the state capture continued with Zuma’s request demanding that Zondo recuse himself.
Sikhakhane said the commission has bought into a narrative that Zuma “ruined our country” by hearing testimony from “beloved witnesses” such as Public Business Minister Pravin Gordhan, former Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas and former Public Business Minister Barbara Hogan, “spitting all sorts of things from his moral superiority.”
He said Zondo’s comments during testimony meant that “political witnesses” clung to those positions.
READ | Zondo Commission: Zuma concerned about narrative that ‘ruined our country’
“Those witnesses were treated with a certain deference,” he said. He said this indicates a “mind that is inclined to agree with a particular type of witness.”
He said this led Zuma to see the commission as “the grave to bury him.”
Sikhakhane said that if they lose the application, they will review it, and if he is forced to take Zuma to the stand, “he will exercise his right to say nothing.”
Legal base
He also questioned the concept of state capture, saying that it is a political concept and has no legal basis.
He said:
All states are captured. All the states.
He said that this is the area of political dispute.
Sikhakhane said they may all be “pawns in a great game of intelligence.”
He warned Zondo that he will be the one to be criticized for the commission’s eventual report, not “the people behind the scenes,” pushing an ethnic or racial agenda.
MUST READ | Zuma will not attend the state capture commission until the ‘partial’ Zondo recuses
Sikhakhane also denied that Zuma ducked and dived to appear before the commission or that he was employing Stalingrad tactics.
He said that Zuma takes the position that Zondo should recuse himself, because, “even when he was sick, you didn’t believe him.”
After Sikhakhane completed his arguments, Zondo said that in two and a half months he would have been a judge for 24 years, and it is the first time in his career that he has been asked to recuse himself.
After lunch, the commission’s evidence leader, defender Paul Pretorius, was responding to Sikhakhane’s arguments.
At the beginning of the day’s proceedings, Zondo read a statement in the registry in which he acknowledges that he knew Zuma, but denies that they shared a close personal friendship.
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