Zuma corruption trial adjourned till September 5

Former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma will have to wait for more than a month for the corruption trial he believes will clear his name, after it was adjourned till September 5 by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday.

Judge Herbert Msimang made the order after Zuma's lawyer asked for scrapping the case.Msimang did not accept state prosecutor Wim Trengove's assertion that it should be postponed till September 7 because colleague Anton Steynberg would be overseas for a conference.

When Zuma left the court, he was flanked by a large group of bodyguards and his close followers from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, African National Congress (ANC) and South Africa Communist Party.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said: "It would obviously put more pressure on the prosecution team which already has a lot to deal with but we understand and respect the judge's decision."

Zuma, who is deputy president of the ANC, faces two charges of corruption.

The co-accused, the arms company Thint, is charged with having offered him a bribe of 500,000 rand (73,500 U.S. dollars) a year in exchange for his silence during a probe into the country's multi-billion-rand arms deal.

Source: Xinhua