http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2693
Staff and agencies
Guardian Unlimited
Jacob Zuma, who defeated South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, to become African National Congress leader this month, has been served with prosecution papers for alleged corruption, his lawyer said today.
The charges involved were “various counts of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud,” Michael Hulley said in an email to the AFP news agency.
“According to the indictment, which was served on Mr Zuma’s Johannesburg residence in his absence, the trial is to proceed on 14 August 2008,” he added.
A corruption trial could derail Zuma’s attempt to gain the ANC presidential ticket and succeed Mbeki at the 2009 presidential election, despite his crushing victory in the ANC leadership vote just over a week ago.Charges were expected, with prosecutors saying soon after the ANC vote that they had sufficient evidence to indict Zuma for allegedly accepting substantial bribes from a French arms company.
The timing of this initial revelation, hours before Zuma made his first speech to the ANC’s national conference as party leader, prompted suspicions of a conspiracy by Mbeki’s office to stop Zuma from becoming president.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/southafrica/story/0,,2232930,00.html