Charging Zuma ‘could have led to violence’
Former prosecutions head Bulelani Ngcuka says he wanted to indict former president after the ANC’s 2007 Polokwane conference
Former prosecutions head Bulelani Ngcuka says he pushed for former president Jacob Zuma to be charged with corruption only after the ANC’s 2007 Polokwane conference because he believed doing so earlier "would worsen the already tense political climate and may even lead to political violence". He also insists he took this stance in the now notorious "spy tapes" conversations with then Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy, three years after resigning from his powerful post, because he wanted the state to avoid "creating an incorrect public perception that the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority] was not politically independent". Zuma maintains the conversation showed the existence of a political conspiracy The spy tapes recordings led to then acting national director of public prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe to withdraw all charges against Zuma and the French arms company Thales, accused of bribing him in 2009. That decision, which paved the way for Zuma to win the presidency of the country af...
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