Former president Jacob Zuma, who has said he needed to sell items of clothing to pay the lawyers fighting his corruption case, is set to have spy allegations against one of his former colleagues tested in court.
Derek Hanekom, whom Zuma appointed to various positions in his administration, including science and technology and tourism, is suing the former leader of the ANC and the country for R500,000 after he accused him of being an apartheid spy.
The defamation case is set for August 21 and will give Zuma a legal platform to provide evidence for his accusations and for the court to scrutinise them.
Hanekom, most recently the tourism minister, argued that the accusations made on Zuma’s official Twitter account had caused “immense harm and damage” to his reputation and this harm would continue as long as “this statement remained published without censure”.
Hanekom said Zuma’s tweet, made just days after the former president appeared at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture in July and accused other ANC leaders of being spies, clearly insinuated that he was part of a “plan” hatched by the apartheid government and foreign intelligence agencies to remove Zuma as president.
When he appeared at the Zondo commission, Zuma suggested that the ANC’s leadership had been infiltrated by spies planted by foreign intelligence agencies. He named former ministers Ngoako Ramathlodi and Siphiwe Nyanda as some of the apartheid spies.
A few days later he called Hanekom a “known enemy agent” in a tweet.
At the commission, Zuma was called upon to answer accusations that he had through his friendship with the Gupta family facilitated state capture and corruption. Instead, he used the commission as a platform to attack his detractors and said he and members of his family were
victims of a campaign to discredit him.
Hanekom, who is regarded as a close ally of President Cyril Ramaphosa, wants the high court in Durban to rule that Zuma’s tweet was “defamatory and untrue”.
He also wants the court to order Zuma to delete the tweet and then to “unconditionally withdraw his spy claim, acknowledge that it was entirely false” and apologise.
Hanekom further wants Zuma to be “interdicted from publishing any statement that says or implies” that he “is or was an enemy agent or apartheid spy”.
During his testimony at the commission inquiry, Zuma said he had been aware of a threedecade plan, implemented by foreign intelligence agencies and the apartheid government, to plant spies within the ANC in order to assassinate him and his character.
The case brought by Hanekom is the first legal action brought against Zuma over his claims that several of his former cabinet ministers spied for the apartheid government. Ramatlhodi and Nyanda have denied working for the previous government, and Nyanda said he was considering legal action. Ramatlhodi challenged Zuma to a lie detector test.
While Zuma’s lawyers on Monday filed a notice to oppose Hanekom’s action, it is not clear what the basis of his defence will be. His lawyer, Dan Mantsha, was not available for comment.
Zuma posted his disputed tweet in response to allegations from EFF leader Julius Malema that Hanekom had plotted with the EFF “to bring down Zuma”.
Malema further claimed that Hanekom had provided the EFF with “the list of the ANC MPs who were going to vote with us in the vote of no confidence against Jacob Zuma”.
In court papers, Hanekom says that Zuma’s statement, which “casts aspersions on my character and integrity”, is “without any basis in fact” and is entirely false.
“Mr Zuma has no evidence to support his allegations. And yet he refused to remove the statement from his Twitter account.”
Zuma has applied for a permanent stay of prosecution in his recently revived corruption trial, which focuses on allegations that he was in a corrupt relationship with his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik and accepted a R500,000 a year bribe from French arms company Thales — in exchange for his protection from any potential inquiry into the arms deal.
The high court in Pietermaritzburg has reserved judgment on that case.
DEREK HANEKOM SUING THE FORMER PRESIDENT FOR DEFAMATION AND WANTS R500,000