Zuma’s private prosecution against Downer and Maughan removed from court roll.

By Lehlohonolo Lehana.

Judge Nkosinathi Chili has removed former President Jacob Zuma’s private prosecution against state advocate Billy Downer and journalist Karyn Maughan from the court roll.

This after Maughan’s lawyer, Charl du Plessis, had last week told the court that the private prosecution has come to the end of the road and must be struck off the roll.

Judge Chili handed down his ruling in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday.

“The private prosecution by Zuma of Downer and Maughan is removed from the roll. Such removal is without prejudice to the rights of Zuma in terms of Section 11(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act.

“Downer and Maughan are directed to appear as accused persons in the private prosecution in the date to be determined in the event that the judgment and order of the full bench of this division dated 7 June 2023 are finally set aside, “Chilli said.

Zuma is charging Downer, who is the lead prosecutor in his arms deal corruption case and Maughan, with illegally leaking a doctor’s letter to the media.

In 2023, the matter was remanded while Zuma was appealing 2 court orders Downer and Maughan had obtained to stop the case.

The first declared the private prosecution invalid. The second was an interdict to enforce the first order. Zuma has lost appeals against the enforcement order in both the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court.

However, his legal team says they still intend to go to the Constitutional Court to appeal the order that the private prosecution is invalid.

Downer is the lead prosecutor in Zuma’s corruption case related to a multibillion-rand arms deal with French arms company Thales.

Zuma is facing multiple counts of corruption, as well as racketeering, fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, with some of the charges relating to bribes he is alleged to have taken from French arms manufacturing company Thales to provide political protection for an arms deal worth more than $1 billion signed by government in 1999.

Thales, which was then known as Thomson-CSF, is a co-defendant in the corruption trial.

The charges relate to a time when Zuma was a politician on the rise and later a deputy president of South Africa, but before he became president in 2009. He was forced to resign as president in 2018 because of corruption allegations.