IN THE NEWS: Zuma lawyer attempts block court access to Khampepe report

In a somewhat worrying turn of events the Khampepe report saga has taken a surprising turn during the course of last week. The report, which deals with alleged irregularities in the 2002 Zimbabwean presidential elections has been successfully suppressed by the presidency for over six years in ongoing litigation brought by the Mail & Guardian for the publishing of the report in the public domain.

Last month what was believed to be the only existing copy of the report went missing from the court file at the High Court in very suspicious circumstances. The presidency’s lawyer, a state attorney, was allegedly caught several times attempting to retrieve the report from the judge’s chambers during court recess in the judge’s absence. Needless to say, the state attorney in question denies that he had a hand in the report’s disappearance.

After the disappearance of the report, the Mail & Guardian contacted the original drafters of the report, judges Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke, who revealed that they did in fact have an original copy of the report in their possession and that they were willing to hand it over to the court if directed to do so. The presidency’s lawyer then had the gall to argue that the court was not entitled to the report (even though a copy of it had already been in the court file and a judge had taken a “judicial peek” at the report) and demanded that it be handed over to none other than Mr. Jacob Zuma! Luckily the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal seems to have a proper understanding of the separation of powers and has directed that a copy of the report be forwarded to him directly.

One has to wonder what damaging information the Khampepe report will reveal if made public, given the lengths that the presidency is willing to go to in order to suppress it.

#JacobZuma #corruption #fraud #Khampepe #abuseofpower #abuseofprocess #MailGuardian