POISON PLOT OR PARANOIA?

A new book shines a spotlight on South Africa's dodgy R1 trillion nuclear deal with Russia - and how it might have been brought about by then-president Jacob Zuma's belief that President Vladimir Putin had rescued him from poisoning by American spies

-  KARYN MAUGHAN AND KIRSTEN PEARSON

JUST over a week before Christmas 2014, President Jacob Zuma's fourth wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, had a life-changing conversation with her husband that marked the beginning of the break-up of their marriage.

"On or about 17 December 2014, my husband approached me, claiming that he had in his possession certain documents which claimed that I had been contacted by a US Intelligence Group." she later wrote in a sworn affidavit.

"I denied from the outset that I had ever made any contact with any US Intelligence Group and discussed this matter at length with my husband”

Although Nompumelelo didn't know it then, she had been identified as a prime suspect in an alleged murder plot that involved repeated attempts to poison Zuma.

The first time Zuma himself discussed in public who was behind the alleged murderous plot against him was in July 2019, when he took the stand at the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into allegations of State Capture (the Zondo Commission).

In his opening address, he claimed these attempts to kill him were driven by an international conspiracy against him hatched over two decades previously. "There's been a drive to remove me from the scene," he stated. “A wish that I would disappear ... and it arises out of perhaps my work in the ANC and also because of who I am .

Zuma claimed to have information that two unnamed foreign intelligence agencies, working with intelligence structures that existed during apartheid, were intent on removing him. The reason, he said, was that he knew the persons they had planted within the ranks of the ANC.

He added that although there had been an agreement between the apartheid agency and the United States that “apartheid agents” within the ANC should be taken to America, these spies “remain with us”. “They are among us" he said.