Zuma accuser 'was free to go'

2006-05-08 10:30

Johannesburg - Judgment started in axed deputy president Jacob Zuma's rape trial in the Johannesburg High Court at 09:00 on Monday.

Judge Willem van der Merwe, who has presided over the trial since it started on March 6, will reportedly take about six hours to deliver his judgment.

Zuma, 64, is accused of raping a 31-year-old HIV-positive woman in the guest bedroom of his Johannesburg home on November 2 last year. Zuma says the two had consensual sex in his own bedroom.

In a statement backing Zuma's not guilty plea, he said the woman was free to leave whenever she wanted to, at no stage did she say no, and she stayed over that night on her own free will.

The statement said his daughter was in the house and a policeman was outside.

Van der Merwe first concentrated on the woman's testimony, saying he would highlight certain aspects of what she had said.

The woman, who is well known to Zuma, met him when she was about five years old while they were in exile in Swaziland.

Her father and Zuma were good friends and both were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment on Robben Island.

Her father died in a car accident in Zimbabwe and Van der Merwe said the woman had not quite gotten over his death.

The woman referred to Zuma as malume (uncle) and enjoyed spending time with him because he used to tell her stories about her father.

She returned to South Africa from exile in 1990 and phoned him several times in 1998.

She was diagnosed HIV-positive in April 1999.

In 2001 the woman told Zuma she was HIV-positive and testified she had told him this because she regarded him as a father.

In June 2002 she left for the United Kingdom and returned in October 2003. She phoned him twice between October 2003 and May 2004.

Financial assistance

She was accepted at a homeopathic college in Australia in February 2005, and asked Zuma for financial assistance. Zuma told her there was too little time to arrange money and Australia was too far away.

She told Zuma she would apply to a college in the UK and he told her that once she was accepted, he would arrange funding for her.

In June 2005 Zuma was removed as deputy president of the country, and the complainant sent him several SMSes of support saying in one "I love you very much malume".

In July 2005 she started working in Johannesburg and at the end of the month she was accepted to the UK college.

Zuma attempted to get financial assistance for her, but was not able to do so by the admission date of September 9, 2005.

She testified that when she heard there was no money she was devastated and her CD4 count dropped - meaning her immune system took a knock.

In August she visited Zuma's home and they spoke about a bursary and the fact that she did not have a boyfriend.

She testified that he had a "question mark on his head" and she told him that he was not getting lobola any time soon.

She told him she did not have a boyfriend because none of the young men were man enough.

In September 2005 Zuma paid for an air ticket so that the woman could visit her mother in Swaziland.

The judgment continues.

- SAPA