ID President Patricia de Lille says she is ‘very, very angry that the NPA has not provided any substantive legal reasons for withdrawing the fraud, corruption, racketeering and tax evasion charges against ANC President Jacob Zuma.

‘The first casualty of this decision today is the principle that we are all equal before the law.

‘The NPA has got absolutely no right to drop the charges against Jacob Zuma before they have been tested in an open court of law,' Ms De Lille says.

‘The fact that the tapes are legitimate is completely irrelevant to the Zuma case. The NPA must charge Bulelani Ngcuka, Leonard McCarthy and anyone else on the tapes for interfering in the independence of the NPA.

The ID Leader, the 1st of over 200 prospective witnesses in the Zuma case, says ‘the case against Zuma should have gone on uninterrupted.

‘The fact that these allegations of interference will be tested by the courts, but the Zuma case will not, means that the leadership of the NPA has replaced their loyalty to Thabo Mbeki with a new loyalty to Jacob Zuma.

‘The ANC has betrayed the visions, values and ideals of our Constitutional democracy and of the struggle we fought against Apartheid,' De Lille says.

‘Ten years of hard work by whistleblowers, the media and the prosecuting team, all of whom were guided by the principle of equality before the law, have gone down the drain.

‘It is wrong that the ANC has been allowed by the NPA, which should be independent, to dictate to it what is in the best interests of our democracy,' De Lille says.

‘This is an extremely sad day for me and for our country. We can only hope and pray that our people will eventually realize that the ANC leadership is motivated by self-interest, greed and dishonesty.

‘I am deeply concerned for our future for as long as these ANC crooks are in control of our country,' says De Lille.

Statement issued by the Independent Democrats, April 6 2009

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