Zuma threatens to tell all if put on trial for corruption (Extra)

Aug 5, 2008, 13:35 GMT

Pietermaritzburg, South Africa - South Africa's ruling African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma on Tuesday vowed he would take down other officials if the state continued to pursue him for alleged corruption in a state arms deal.

Speaking at the end of a two-day court hearing on the legality of corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering charges laid against him last year Zuma told his supporters that the 'whole truth' about the arms deal might be revealed if he were put on trial.

'Thirty million, thirty million,' the crowd chanted in response, referring to a weekend report in a South African newspaper alleging President Thabo Mbeki had taken money from a German arms dealer on behalf of his party.

Zuma on Monday applied to the Pietermaritzburg High Court to have the charges against him quashed because he wasn't given the opportunity to make representations in the case before he was indicted.

Judge Chris Nicholson reserved judgement in the application until September 12. The main case has provisionally been set down for December 8.

Addressing at least 2,000 people crammed into a square opposite the courthouse in the capital of his native KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma slammed the media for accusing him of using delaying tactics to stave off his day in court.

Speaking in Zulu he said he was only exercising his constitutional rights by challenging the state's case in several courts before it went to trial.

Referring to verbal attacks by leading ANC members in recent weeks on judges involved in the Zuma case, Zuma said that if the judiciary was wrong, it 'needed to be told.'

Zuma's supporters, which include the ANC top brass and the allied Communist Party and trade union confederation COSATU allege that the case against Zuma is merely a politically-inspired attempt to bar him from becoming president in 2009.

The ANC has named Zuma as their candidate to succeed Mbeki when his second term expires at next year's general elections that the ANC is expected to win.

Some of Zuma's supporters point the finger for his prosecution directly at Mbeki, who lost the ANC presidency to Zuma in December.

'We're convinced that this conspiracy is being led by the state president against our president,' Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of the ANC Youth League, said.

'Before you go to him you must kill the youth of this country. We're prepared to die for Zuma,' said Malema, who recently declared he would 'kill' for Zuma.

In a sign of the animosity among Zuma supporters towards Mbeki, one youth torched a photo of Mbeki at Tuesday's rally.