Zuma lawyer accuses state capture commission’s Pretorius of ‘condescension’, bias

One of Jacob Zuma’s lawyers, advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, accused the head of the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture’s legal team, Joseph Pretorius, of “condescension” ahead of the former president’s testimony at the commission on Monday.

This followed Pretorius saying he did not “understand the logic” of what Sikhakhane was saying “in any manner at all”.

Pretorius thought Sikhakhane was saying it was unfair that Zuma had not been given an opportunity to give notice to those who he may implicate in his testimony, something Sikhakhane then took to the stand to deny.

“If the former president’s intention here today is to implicate certain parties under whatever clause of our terms of reference, that is his prerogative, but to say it’s unfair because he’s been prevented from being giving notice is simply illogical,” Pretorius suggested, as the commission didn’t know what he was going to say or who was going to be implicated.

“Now that he has started on his condescension, let me deal with it now,” said Sikhakhane in response.

“First, I didn’t say Mr Zuma wanted to give notice to anybody, I said an injustice could happen because we would have liked to prepare him,” he clarified.

He went on to take issue with the commission’s attitude.

READ MORE: Zuma gets standing ovation as he arrives at Zondo commission

“The problem is this attitude exactly of this commission, is that people bring their views outside and treat certain witnesses as sweethearts and others as accused,” he said.

“I am saying, it is important that everyone who comes here gets the same rigour and the same questioning, people must not bring their own ideas out there and I think Pretorious was doing exactly that,” he continued.

“I was articulating to you, chairperson, the dangers that we saw, and that is why I kept asking, and I don’t think I was inviting his condescension as he didn’t understand what I was saying, he truly did not, and this is the problem, we’ve been speaking past each other.

“If he didn’t understand me he must say so. It’s this attitude which I think has been making your process…” he said, his sentence trailing off, at which point he received a round of applause from Zuma supporters.

“May I request that there be no clapping of hands please, thank you,” was Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s response.

Pretorius, in reaction, said he wouldn’t respond.

“We’ll try and maintain a collegiality and a dignity in these proceedings,” Zondo added.

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