IOL — 02/21/2008
MBEKI PLOTTED AGAINST ME, SAYS ZUMA
Karyn Maughan.
Jacob Zuma has accused President Thabo Mbeki and the suspended national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli of being the chief suspects in a conspiracy against him. Zuma states under oath that the decision to recharge him and French arms company Thint for corruption is part of a 'carefully orchestrated, politically inspired and driven strategy to exclude me from any meaningful political role'.

In an affidavit served on the Mauritian Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, Zuma asked the court for the right to stop the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) obtaining the originals of 13 documents used to convict his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, of fraud and corruption. [Shaik is serving a 15-year imprisonment term]. Explaining why he believed there was a political conspiracy against him, Zuma again questioned the circumstances under which following Shaik's conviction he was dismissed as South Africa's deputy president and then charged with corruption in August 2005.

Zuma would have become president
'Both these decisions were made shortly after Pikoli had accompanied the president on a trip to Chile,' Zuma said. 'The president and Pikoli allege that they arrived at their respective decisions independently of each other - I have difficulty in believing that to be the truth.' He added that, at the time that he was first charged, 'I would most likely have been elevated to the position of [South Africa's] president once the current incumbent's (Thabo Mbek's) term of office had expired.

The disputed documents include the diary of former Thint representative Alain Thethard, in which he noted a meeting in which he, Shaik and Zuma allegedly discussed a R500,000 bribe for Zuma. The documents being handed over included a recent meeting with Mauritian Prime Minister Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam.

Zuma, who defeated Mbeki for the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) in December, is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from a French arms manufacturer. He is due to go on trial in August for corruption, fraud, money-laundering and racketeering. In an affidavit filed in Mauritius, where Zuma is trying to block officials from handing over documents for his trial, Zuma said Mbeki and a prosecutor coordinated his 2005 dismissal as deputy president and subsequent prosecution.