Ithumelele Radhebe
Former President Jacob Zuma’s attorney, Dali Mpofu, has contended in the Pietermaritzburg High Court that the right to impartial prosecution is a necessary component of the right to a fair trial. Zuma is being tried for fraud and corruption concerning the sale of firearms.
In a separate request for the recusal of principal prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer, Mpofu presented his case before Judge Nkosinathi Chilli.
Judge Piet Koen rejected Zuma’s special plea in 2020, which called for Downer to be removed due to questions about his supposed impartiality.
Nevertheless, the case required starting afresh when Judge Koen withdrew from the trial beginning this year.
Downer is allegedly accused by Mpofu’s client of providing journalist Karyn Maughan access to his medical records.
“We are not saying Downer admits to any guilt of anything, but we are saying from an ethical professional point of view or the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) should paint him with a brush can you really and don’t even want to go to what it means, my Lord.”
“But simply what is called not ethical standard but the highest ethical standard that is expected from the NPA. If the NPA and Downer for that matter had done the right thing, and the right thing for both of them was to say, look there are these complaints and we think that they are wrong. The NPA would have said we are putting another prosecutor and Downer would have said I can’t, I am moving out,” adds Mpofu.
The former president is allegedly employing delay strategies to postpone the trial for arms sale fraud and corruption, but the Jacob Zuma Foundation has refuted these accusations.
Mzwanele Manyi, the foundation’s spokesman, states, “The only thing that has been delaying this case since 2005 is the NPA. Now we are not told that 20 years later when part of that 20 years waste is in the hands of NPA. It will have a chilling effect that if someone appeals … the main reason we have these kinds [of] senior courts is because the junior courts make mistakes all the time and in this case, Koen made his mistakes and we are still dealing with his mistakes,” says Manyi.
