The Pietermaritzburg High Court will today work out the schedule for former president Jacob Zuma’s arms deal corruption trial, which has been on and off since the early 2000s.

Zuma faces several counts of fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with the arms deal, which the country concluded in the 1990s when he was a senior member of the ANC national leadership.

The former president, who in December defected to the ANC splinter organisation, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, stands accused of receiving kickbacks to protect the interests of French arms manufacturer Thales, which is Zuma’s co-accused in the arms deal corruption case.

Zuma’s trial was supposed to have started in 2021 but was delayed due to his ill health.

Zuma’s incarceration in July 2021 for defying a Constitutional Court order to appear before the Zondo Commission also led to the delay in the start of the trial.

Following Zuma’s release towards the end of 2021, the arms deal trial was put on hold to allow Zuma to exhaust legal avenues available to him in his bid to have the lead prosecutor in the arms deal corruption matter, Advocate Billy Downer, removed from the case.

Read the full article in The Witness.