It may be the beginning of the end of a long court drama for Jacob Zuma.

The former South African president appears in court on Monday, May 17, for 16 charges including that of corruption.

He is suspected of having received more than four million rand (or 235,000 euros at the current rate) in bribes in 1999, as part of an armaments contract of nearly 3 billion euros signed with the French giant Thales, also on the dock.

The former head of state (2009-2018) will also have to answer for counts of extortion and money laundering, for facts dating back to 1999, when he was still vice-president, when the French giant d armaments won a contract for the equipment of military planes and ships.

Very quickly, the South African opposition accused the authorities of corruption in the awarding of these contracts. 

02:20

After a first trial in 2005, Shabir Shaik, Jacob Zuma's former financial adviser, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for paying illicit sums to the former president and negotiating bribes with the French company.

One of the main prosecution witnesses is a lawyer who worked for Thales for six years. His testimony on Pierre Moynot, then responsible for the local Thales subsidiary, is explosive: "I was only an observer at the time, when Mr. Moynot gave all this money, not only to Mr. Zuma, but he also paid the former Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna to ensure his services ", explains Me Ajay Sooklal to our correspondents in South Africa Caroline Dumay, Stefan Carstens and Sam Bradpiece. "It happened in a hotel in London. The sum was 50,000 euros."

Contacted by France 24, the ANC party of Jacob Zuma, founded by Nelson Mandela and which plays its credibility, did not comment.

Thales, for its part, said it was confident and strongly denied the accusations against its South African subsidiary.

Towards a new postponement

?

But stainless Jacob Zuma, forced to resign in 2018 after a string of other corruption scandals, is doing all he can to delay his judgment.

Just a month before his trial, all his lawyers, like one man, gave up representing him at the end of April.

Without any explanation.

Umpteenth maneuver?

Nothing has filtered out their reasons but the 79-year-old Zulu, cunning and charismatic, could reasonably ask for a further postponement, time to reorganize his defense.

"It is almost certain that he - or his new team of lawyers if he has one - will ask for a postponement and that this postponement will be granted," said lawyer James Grant, questioned by AFP on the different possible legal scenarios. 

In recent months, Jacob Zuma has defied the authorities from his residence in Nkandla in the Zulu countryside, retyped at the taxpayer's expense for 20 million euros during his presidency under the pretext of "security" work.

In 2018, before the end of his second term as president, he fell out of favor, swept away by a terrible spiral of scandals, double play and abuse of power.

But by having built a network of faithful, among parliamentarians and political leaders.

"He holds lots of secrets"

During the days of the ANC in exile under apartheid, "JZ" was the feared chief of intelligence, dealing with traitors and informants.

He also spent ten years on Robben Island as a political prisoner.

"He holds lots of secrets that he threatened to reveal," argues political scientist Asanda Ngoasheng.

Since then, he has been constantly playing cat and mouse with the anti-corruption commission, which he set up in early 2018 just before his fall, to try to convince that he had nothing to be ashamed of.

The growing tension linked to Jacob Zuma's repeated refusals to testify has led to an impasse, when he was cited directly or indirectly by more than thirty witnesses before this advisory commission, whose conclusions could however be transmitted to the prosecution.

Zuma is familiar with the courts.

In 2006, he was acquitted of the rape of the HIV-positive daughter of one of his former comrades in the struggle.

He scandalized the country by claiming to have "taken a shower" after unprotected sex, thinking that he would avoid any HIV infection.

With AFP

The summary of the week

France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR