(AFP) – Dec 28, 2007

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — Supporters of Jacob Zuma, the new leader of South Africa's ruling party ANC, protested Saturday that new corruption charges against him were part of a politically inspired campaign.

South African prosecutors have slapped Zuma with a host of new charges, including money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion, along with original charges related to corruption and fraud which were thrown out of court last year.

A little over a week since his election as leader of the African National Congress, Zuma was told Friday that he would go on trial next August in a move that may scupper his hopes of becoming head of state in 2009.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions, one of Zuma's biggest backers, condemned the move by the National Prosecuting Authority as a "politically inspired campaign" using state institutions to settle factional battles within the ANC.

"The timing of the indictment has all the hallmarks of vengeance, deep-seated anger and frustration by the NPA and whoever else is behind this," said COSATU spokesman Patrick Craven.

He added that this indicated "a level of personal anger against him" and that Zuma, who has been the subject of investigation since 2000, had had his human rights "systematically and grossly violated."

"We are convinced that Jacob Zuma will not have a fair trial," Craven said.

Zuma's attorney Michael Hulley said in a statement mailed to AFP that the timing of the indictment was "peculiar" and that it proved the Scorpions were "influenced and their prosecution informed by political considerations."

"The timing of the service of the indictment is calculated to quickly redress the popular support and call to leadership of the ANC which Mr Zuma's election so obviously demonstrates," Hulley said.

Zuma, who was cleared of rape at a trial last year, was sacked by Mbeki as deputy head of state in 2005 after his financial advisor Schabir Shaik was sentenced to 15 years in prison for soliciting bribes on his behalf.

Hulley said the elite Scorpions unit had informed his client that he faced a string of charges in relation to a long-standing probe into a 1999 arms deal and would stand trial "on various counts of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud."

"According to the indictment, which was served on Mr Zuma's Johannesburg residence in his absence, the trial is to proceed on 14 August 2008."

An initial bid to try Zuma was thrown out of court by a judge last year, but prosecutors have since been firming up their case and charges became more or less inevitable last month when Zuma lost a legal challenge to a series of search warrants.

Given the ANC's dominance of South African politics since the end of the whites-only apartheid rule in 1994, Zuma could normally expect to become president of the country after Mbeki's second term of office expires in 2009.

However, while saying charges would not force his resignation, Zuma recently indicated he would step aside if convicted.

"If I'm taken to court and the judge says 'Zuma, we find you guilty', as I walk out of court I will say to the ANC 'I'm stepping down'," he told the public broadcaster SABC.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said the ANC would have to confront the issue and deal with it formally.

"The ANC (national executive committee) when it meets on the seventh (of January) will discuss how to deal with this matter in a structured manner," he told AFP.

"We will have to talk about how do we deal with this thing rather than have this scarecrow that is hanging in front of our gate every day."

The leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille, said it was time for Zuma, who has long demanded his day in court to be exonerated, "to face his charges and to accept the outcome of a trial."

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »