‘No prospects of success’: NPA to oppose Zuma’s petition to SCA over Downer’s removal

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is set to oppose former president Jacob Zuma’s move in another bid to have state prosecutor advocate Billy Downer removed from his corruption case.

This week, Zuma’s legal team petitioned to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) after the Pietermaritzburg High Court last month dismissed his application for leave to appeal and ordered the trial must proceed.

This is after the former president saw his special plea to have Downer removed from the trial – which will resume next month – dismissed by Judge Piet Koen last October.

At the time, Zuma also laid a criminal complaint against Downer at the Pietermaritzburg Police Station for allegedly leaking his confidential medical records to the media, which the NPA denied.

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No prospects of success on appeal

While Zuma has since decided to approach the SCA, the move be opposed by the NPA.

 “We will be opposing the petition as we believe there are no prospects of success on appeal, we stand by the judgment of Judge Koen,” NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga told The Citizen on Friday.

Mhaga, however, indicated to Jaracanda FM that the NPA would not file any papers.

“We are saying that the judgment speaks for itself and we stand by the judgment. That’s an opposition, although we are not filing any affidavits,” he said.

“The importance of it is that we will resist any delay as we are ready and focusing on preparation for the 11th of April,” he added. 

The NPA has repeatedly accused Zuma of regurgitating old falsehoods in an attempt to delay the start of his corruption trial.

In his petition to the SCA, Zuma is also seeking for leave to adduce new evidence in support of a criminal complaint he’s since lodged against Downer, which Koen also refused in January.

“The relevance of the evidence is self-evident. The possibility of a suspect in a criminal case opened by one person, also acting as an ‘independent’ prosecutor against the complainant, puts the notion of prosecutorial independence at the centre of the special plea,” he said in his papers.

READ MORE: Billy Downer didn’t leak medical records, says NPA

Zuma wants the SCA to set aside Koen’s dismissal of an application for a “special entry” centred on what he alleges were irregularities or illegalities, as well as of an application for the reservation of several questions of law for determination by the appellate court.

He faces multiple charges of fraud and corruption alongside French arms dealer Thales over the controversial multi-billion rand arms deal struck back when he was KwaZulu-Natal MEC for economic development, in the 1990s.

The former president and Thales pleaded not guilty to charges in May 2021.

Zuma previously demanded for acquittal in terms of section 106(1)(h) Criminal Procedure Act.