About 250 supporters expected outside Durban High Court for Zandile Gumede corruption matter news24.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from news24.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Former president Jacob Zuma has demanded that he be acquitted of arms deal corruption - without ever facing trial - because the State has lost the constitutional legitimacy to present the evidence against me .
Zuma was responding to arguments by lead prosecutor Billy Downer, who says the former president s efforts to seek acquittal through a so-called special plea process are legally ludicrous.
This, Downer said, is because special pleas are used to attack the title of an advocate to prosecute a case and, in any event, can only result in the removal of the prosecutor.
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'At best, commissioners asked irrelevant and nonsensical questions that prejudiced candidates; at worst, they used the interviews for naked political score settling,' says Casac’s Lawson Naidoo in the papers.
Prosecutor Billy Downer says Zuma’s special plea is misplaced, adding that he had been designated to prosecute the arms deal case by two ex-directors of public prosecutions.
Loyal supporters of Jacob Zuma gathered outside the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg have again lamented that the embattled former president is a political target. They ignored concerns of a looming Covid-19 third wave to gather outside court on Wednesday.