NPA receives docket on poison plot against Zuma – report

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has reportedly received a docket from the Hawks related to a series of assassination attempts on President Jacob Zuma.

According to Gupta-owned newspaper The New Age, NPA spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku confirmed on Wednesday the docket had been received by the public prosecuting body and the case was being handled by head of priority crimes unit Advocate Torie Pretorius, who is currently representing the state in the Ahmed Timol inquest.

The case is reportedly related to a poison plot allegedly involving Zuma’s estranged second wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma, who is said to be a suspect in the case after the president fell ill in June 2014.

Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi also confirmed to the paper investigations on the docket had been completed.

“We are complete with investigations, and of course, there are some aspects that will be sorted out by the NPA, which we have to deal with. The investigators are now in the process of just finalising everything so that the docket can go back, and then we will be able to know exactly where to move from that side,” he said.

According to media reports, Zuma learned he was poisoned while he was on a trip to the US in 2014, and a docket investigating allegations of attempted murder was opened by Nkandla police in April 2015.

It has also been reported that on January 4, 2015, Ntuli-Zuma was apparently asked by Minister of State Security David Mahlobo to leave the Nkandla homestead after being told she was implicated in a sensitive matter that was being investigated.

Zuma is said to have first spoken about the poison plot last year during a meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee, where he apparently said there were three attempts on his life. He recently repeated the claims of threats on his life at the weekend during an ANC cadres’ forum in the Free State.

Zuma told ANC delegates he almost died because of his commitment to radical economic transformation.

“I nearly died because they did poison me. They managed to find someone close to me, and I know it,” he said.

“I was dead. They don’t believe how I survived. Not one dose, because the person who was poisoning me was so innocent, so close. Three doses. Even scientists can’t believe why I did not die [sic].”

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