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Zuma's 'brains trust' on the offensive

Anna Majavu

Anna Majavu

Jacob Zuma's "brains trust" has gone on the attack, slamming Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Human Rights Commission, the country's lawyers and Supreme Court of Appeal judge Louis Harms.

The "brains trust" team of Judge Willem Heath, political analyst Sipho Seepe and University of Cape Town law professor Paul Ngobeni were speaking at a highly charged Human Sciences Research Council debate last night on the NPA's decision to drop all charges against the ANC president.

Seepe said Tutu was behaving like the "leader of drum majorettes" for insisting that Zuma stand trial.

He said Zuma was a "victim of race prejudice, class prejudice and cultural prejudice".

"Jacob Zuma does not spend most of his time quoting dead white people from Europe. He does not try to be anything but himself," Seepe said.

Heath said it was frightening, a shame and very disappointing that practising lawyers had not made any statements about the alleged plot against Zuma by former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy and former national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka.

Heath said the Human Rights Commission had "failed democracy" by not setting up an investigation into the tapes released by the NPA last week, which proved that there was a political conspiracy against Zuma.

Ngobeni said Supreme Court of Appeal judge Louis Harms had damaged the judicial system when he overturned a ruling by Pietermaritzburg high court judge Chris Nicholson to drop charges against Zuma.

But Central University of Technology professor Thandwa Mthembu said it was unfair to criticise Judge Harms because he did not have the leaked tapes when he made his ruling.

The tapes were made public for the first time by the NPA last week.

"There was at that time no evidence of a conspiracy," he said.

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