In South Africa, while he is implicated in the report of the commission of inquiry into corruption, former president Jacob Zuma has decided to make his point of view heard. The media were invited to a speech by the former president on Saturday, June 24, but it did not go exactly as planned.
With our correspondent in Johannesburg, Claire Bargeles
It was a Jacob Zuma press conference that ended up happening without Jacob Zuma. His lawyer Dali Mpofu explained his absence: “ It’s because we advised him not to come, because of the rules attached to his parole. We prefer to take all our precautions. »
For having refused to appear before the commission of inquiry, Jacob Zuma has indeed finished serving a fifteen-month prison sentence on parole, for medical reasons. A commission that has carried out more than four years of work, collected some 300 testimonies, but including the Zuma Foundation and its spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi, continue to criticize the legitimacy : “ His Excellency President Zuma has been, and still is, abused by the South African justice system. As for the illegal report written by this illegal commission, it is, as expected, filled with gossip, innuendo, and conjecture. There is a lack of concrete evidence. »
Judge Zondo’s commission submitted this week the latest part of its researchand makes it clear that the former president has “ abused his position and allowed a vast system of corruption to take hold.
The arrest of Jacob Zuma last year sparked a wave of deadly riots, killing more than 350 people. Mzwanele Manyi does not rule out the possibility of such events happening again: Volatility within the country can be controlled with good intelligence services. But if one continues with such a level of incompetence, anything is possible. »
President Cyril Ramaphosa is due to announce his intentions on the commission’s recommendations within four months.
The former president should again be before the courts in mid-August, on the one hand for justice to consider the legality or not of his placement on parole, but also in the context of another corruption case, the Thales case.