Either way the self-incrimination angle may have been used by Zuma and co to ensure his testimony at the commission can't be used against him in any criminal proceedings going forward.
How then can a criminal case be made against him if his testimony in the commission is inadmissible?
This was a decision made last year which was signed in my current president, Ramaphosa, because witnesses didn’t want to give testimony without implicating themselves.
The commission chooses to receive testimony in a certain order to establish a cross-examination process. The process is in their rule book which the Zuma legal team argues against due to a simple technicality, in regard to being granted leave, and then changed that into a motive where Zuma is being cross-examined, being connected in the previous testimonies. In the USA they have the 5th Amendment (which is Constitutional), but in Zuma’s case, it would be wise to deny the other witnesses testimony by either being unaware or too vague to remember.
This is why Pretorius will ask questions without having the current witness stepping into a scenario where his testimony shall not be admissible as evidence. He used Hogan’s testimony against Zuma, and Zuma’s legal team was expecting that and that was when they intervened. Pretorius asked normal procedural questions in order to give Hogan’s testimony credibility. The commission’s legal team is building a case, they are connecting the dots. They used this opportunity to have Zuma support the other testimonies.
The only testimony Zuma gave was calling out comrades as spies, implicating others in state capture and calling on the Third Force as the might behind the current circumstances.
Sign up with Google
