State protests hollow - Zuma
2006-08-22 20:45
Pietermaritzburg - Former deputy president Jacob Zuma accused the State of doing an "about turn" when it filed affidavits seeking a postponement of his corruption trial.
Zuma filed papers in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday in response to the State's replying affidavits that seek a postponement of his corruption trial.
In these papers, Zuma said the State had sought to postpone the trial because of the outstanding appeals on search and seizure raids; the outstanding appeal of convicted businessman Schabir Shaik; the finalising of requests for documents from Mauritius; and a forensic audit from KPMG.
He said State advocate Leonard McCarthy's affidavit that the State was prepared to proceed with the case against him even although the appeals of the search and seizure raids had not been finalised was an "about turn".
Forensic audit
He also said "the contents of the affidavits, and several of the annexures, are prejudicial to me in that the State seeks to draw adverse inferences therefrom".
He said the State had not adequately explained why the forensic audit against him had not proceeded earlier.
He accused the State of having failed "to address crucial issues raised in my application for a permanent stay".
"Protestations of indignation and outrage spew forth from the mouths of senior officials, past and present, of the national prosecuting authority and the national ministry of justice.
"Yet their howls of innocence, when subjected to analysis, are shrill and hollow."
- SAPA