Canaan Mdletshe

ANC president Jacob Zuma says he does not bear any grudges against people that were implicated by NPA in plotting a political conspiracy against him.

"I will not hold anything against all those people. I have no reason to do that. I have never held any person against anything they have done to me before, and I will not do it this time around," a jovial Zuma told the media in Durban yesterday.

This was after his "last court appearance" in the Durban high court, where all the charges against him were officially withdrawn.

The NPA fingered its former boss Bulelani Ngcuka and former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy of having interfered with Zuma's prosecution.

Zuma said he was neither going to act against former president Thabo Mbeki, on whose behalf McCarthy and Ngcuka are believed to have acted.

In a very emotional speech, Zuma said the charges against him have had a great toll on his family. "The charges have brought pain to the entire Zuma family, especially my children and close relatives. But we have been sustained throughout this by the unwavering support of comrades, friends and scores of well-wishers nationally and internationally," he said.

Zuma said he did not regard himself as being above the law, and believed that no public representative should be beyond scrutiny. "That is why throughout the eight-year period, I did not use my position to interfere with the due process of the law.

"I have always been ready to co-operate with the NPA and have presented myself in courts whenever needed. My quarrel with the NPA was on the methods and the motives of the investigation," he said.

Zuma also took a swipe at the media for persecuting him "without allowing the law to take its course".