FORMER president Jacob Zuma appeared in court on Tuesday to face multiple charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering, as a decade-old trial delayed by procedural bickering resumed.
Zuma is being tried on 16 charges relating to a $2 billion arms deal with French defence firm Thales in 1999, when Zuma was deputy president.
The charges were reinstated in March 2018, a month after the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party kicked him out of office after a presidency marked by graft allegations and sovereign credit rating downgrades.
The former leader, in power between 2009 and 2018, rejects all allegations as a politically motivated witch-hunt. But the case is a rare example of an African judicial system seeking to prosecute a former leader for alleged wrongdoing.
Zuma wore a dark grey suit at the court in Pietermaritzburg and looked tense, frequently clicking his jaw.
Much of Tuesday’s pre-trial hearing
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