Zuma denies father/daughter relationship

2006-04-03 12:09

Johannesburg - Former deputy president Jacob Zuma took the stand in a packed courtroom Monday to defend himself against charges that he raped an HIV-positive family friend.

The 63-year-old, who maintains that the sexual intercourse at his home last November was consensual, denied claims by his 31-year-old accuser that there was a father-daughter relationship between them.

He said in the two months leading up to the incident they frequently sent each other mobile phone text messages and that she started using expressions like "lots of hugs," and "lots of kisses" in the messages.

"That is very wrong for her to say that there was a father-daughter relationship between us," said Zuma, who was dressed in a dark suit and maroon tie and spoke calmly and steadily.

"There was never such a relationship between us," he told the court, speaking in Zulu.

The complainant, who said she knew Zuma since the age of 5 and called him "uncle," alleges that Zuma abused her trust when she stayed the night at his Johannesburg home.

Zuma implicated in bribery scandal

The accuser has testified under cross-examination that she was raped by other people three times as a child and had an abortion after being raped by someone else at the age of 19. Zuma's attorney Kemp J Kemp has argued that the woman has a history of making false rape accusations.

Judge Willem van der Merwe rejected defence arguments last week that the evidence brought against Jacob Zuma was too flimsy to justify continuing with the country's most politically explosive trial since apartheid's end.

Zuma once seemed certain to succeed President Thabo Mbeki at the helm of Africa's economic and diplomatic powerhouse. But Mbeki dismissed his deputy in June after Zuma was implicated in a bribery scandal surrounding a government arms deal.

At the trial Monday, Zuma reiterated his view that the charges were part of a political conspiracy against him to deny him the presidency.

- AP