Legal analyst Mpumelelo Zikalala says former President Jacob Zuma will have to bring new evidence if he wants to resuscitate his previous unsuccessful applications for the recusal of advocate Billy Downer in his fraud and corruption case.
Zuma and the French arms company, Thales, were back in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, on charges including fraud, corruption and money laundering over the arms deal procurement in the late 1990s.
Early this year, Judge Piet Koen recused himself from the case after Zuma instituted a private prosecution against state prosecutor advocate Billy Downer and legal journalist Karyn Maughan.
Zikalala says, “Let’s remember this court, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) and even the Constitutional Court have pronounced on the matter. Unless you are going to come with new facts and new ingredients which will pursue the mind of Judge Chili, the SCA and even the ConCourt in terms of saying well, when we decided the matter initially there were certain facts that were not there.”
In the video below Zikalala explains further:
Zuma’s staunch supporter Carl Niehaus was present at court.
“It is not possible for Downer to be the prosecutor while at the same time [former] President Zuma has actually brought a criminal case against Downer and leaked personal medical documents to a journalist. Under the circumstances, if Downer continues to be the prosecutor it will be the travesty of justice,” adds Niehaus.
Zuma files a new application to recuse Adv. Billy Downer:
