|
Zuma: 'Accuser needs support'
07/12/2005 08:42 - (SA)
Cape Town - In his first public comment on the rape charge against his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, President Thabo Mbeki has said people should spare a thought for Zuma's alleged victim.
In a live interview on Metro FM's Given Mkhari show on Tuesday, Mbeki said there'd been a formal African National Congress decision to support Zuma when he was charged with corruption earlier this year.
"But I must also say with regard to the case now, where the deputy president was charged today, obviously the movement also would want to say it also supports the person, the woman who laid the charges and complained.
"We need to also express support for the alleged victim of this rape in the same way as we are saying we support the deputy president."
Zuma is deputy president of the ANC.
A sense of hurt
Mbeki said he felt "somewhat of a burden" over what had happened to Zuma - in the sadness and grief it caused.
Zuma was formally charged with rape on Tuesday. He also faces corruption charges.
Said Mbeki: "I think it's been a heavy year from that point of view, but of course I think we need to sustain the position we've taken, we must respect the principle that everybody's innocent till proven guilty. It's important to stick to this principle and not do anything that's in contradiction to that."
Asked if the ANC and its alliance partners had handled the Zuma issue in the best possible way, he said that, regardless of the outcome of the court case, "all of us" carried a sense of hurt.
Relieving Zuma of duties the right decision
"I think it's necessary to understand that when all of us as members of the ANC, members who've worked with the deputy president for many years, who've been led by him under very difficult circumstances, that when these things happen to him, people want to express a view.
"I think we need to appreciate that. It may be expressed in ways that one person or another may not approve of but we need to understand the context."
Commenting on suggestions that he had been "too silent" on Zuma, Mbeki said what was happening were matters related to the courts.
"As part of the process of respecting the independence of the judiciary, I think there's a particular obligation, particularly on the president, not to say or do anything which might communicate a message of disrespect for these legal, constitutional processes.
"I really do think we needed to create maximum space for judicial legal process to go ahead without any feeling or suggestion there was any intervention by the executive which would seek to influence those decisions and processes in one way or the other."
He also said he still believed that his decision to relieve Zuma from the deputy presidency was correct, and would do exactly the same if faced with the choice now.
- SAPA
|
News
