South Africa

South Africa drops charges against Zuma in run up to elections

Article published on the 2009-04-06 Latest update 2009-04-06 17:16 TU

South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma on 27 March 2009.
(Photo: Reuters)

South Africa's top prosecutor said Monday that he was dropping corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, one of the top candidates to be the country's next president, just weeks before general elections. The decision to drop the charges was based on evidence provided by Zuma's lawyers that the National Prosecuting Authority was looking to exact political gains from the case.

Zuma, who leads the ruling African National Congress party, had been charged with accepting bribes to protect French arms company Thales from an investigation into a controversial multi-million-dollar weapons deal.

"It is neither possible nor desirable for the NPA to continue with the prosecution of Mr Wuma," said Mokotedi Mpshe, head of the NPA.

Zuma's lawyers gave the prosecutors recordings that showed former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka and the ex-boss of the Scorpions investigative unit Leonard McCarthy using the case for political gains, Mpshe said.

McCarthy and Ngcuka also had repeated phone conversations about the timing of the process against Zuma, and coordinated it around ANC meetings, Mpshe added.

"Mr McCarthy used the legal process for a purpose outside and extraneous to the prosecution itself," he added. "It is not so much the prosecution itself that is tainted but the legal process that is tainted."

The charges have been repeatedly dropped and revived since the investigation began in 2001.

"I would say this is over for now," says Susan Booysen, a political analyst at University of Witwatersrand. "This may signal a truce for the two factions within the ANC."

A 2008 court ruling, since overturned, suggested that then-President Thabo Mbeki interferred in Zuma's prosecution.

The ANC used this ruling to force Mbeki from office. His loyalists then launched a breakaway party called the Congress of the People that is competing for power in the 22 April elections.