Former president Jacob Zuma during a previous court appearance.
Image: File picture: Timothy Bernard, African news Agency (ANA).
Former president Jacob Zuma and his co-accused had to immediately prepare for the start of the long-overdue arms deal trial after the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled on Thursday in favour of the State that the two should stop deliberately delaying the matter.
Delivering a ruling on the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) application, Judge Nkosinathi Chili concluded that Zuma and French arms company, Thales, had used Stalingrad tactics, a legal term meaning to deliberately delay court proceedings.
Chili’s order gave the court registrar the prerogative to decide on the date of the arms deal trial against Zuma and Thales, which had been delayed for 20 years.
“The trial is to proceed irrespective of any interlocutory applications either by the State or the defence. The parties are directed to the registrar for a suitable trial date,” said Chili before adjourning the court.
The elderly leader of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) was first charged with arms deal-related corruption in 2005, but the charges were dropped and reinstated in 2018, when he was joined by Thales as the co-accused.
The State, through its lawyer, Advocate Wim Trengove SC, had applied to the court to grant an order that the trial should commence at the earliest date to be determined by the court registrar after consultation with the parties involved.
Trengove had also asked Chili to direct that the order to start the trial without delay should not be suspended by any leave to appeal against it.
Detailing circumstances that prolonged the start of the trial, Chili said on November 15, 2018, the accused launched a permanent stay of prosecution application, which the court dismissed on October 11, 2019.
He said Zuma again filed an application on May 21, 2021, seeking the removal of State prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer from the matter.
“The matter sat on 22 September 2021 and on 26 October 2021, and Koen J (Judge Piet Koen) dismissed and directed the trial to proceed in April 2022.
“That order was followed by an unsuccessful application for leave to appeal, including a reconsideration application to the Supreme Court of Appeal and two applications for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court,” said Chili.
He said on September 5, 2022, Zuma again launched private prosecution proceedings against Downer and journalist Karyn Maughan in relation to the alleged leaking of his confidential medical information.
He said on September 21 and 27, 2022, Maughan and Downer, respectively, approached the court on an urgent basis, seeking orders interdicting the private prosecution against them.
The court granted the interdict against the private prosecution on June 7, 2023, which Zuma appealed, but was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Zuma then launched another application to remove Downer as the public prosecutor, while Thales also launched a separate application to quash the charges against it, which Zuma supported.
When the court rejected Zuma and Thales’s applications, they both filed appeal applications.
He said Zuma called for the dismissal of the application for an order against the Stalingrad tactics.
Chili said there was nothing in Koen’s judgment indicating that he found as a fact that Zuma had not implemented Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, the JG Zuma Foundation expressed concern about Chili’s ruling, saying it disregarded the fundamental principles of fairness and rationality since there were pending proceedings before the Supreme Court of Appeal, which is yet to rule on Zuma's application for the permanent stay of prosecution.