JOHANNESBURG, Dec 28: Jacob Zuma, the new leader of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, was on Friday served with papers to appear in court next August to face corruption charges, his lawyer said.

“Today, 28 December 2007, the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) served on Mr Jacob Zuma an indictment to stand trial in the High Court on various counts of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud,” Zuma’s attorney Michael Hulley said in an email, referring to a special elite police crime-busting unit.

According to the indictment, which was served on Mr Zuma’s Johannesburg residence in his absence, the trial is to proceed on Aug 14, 2008. Zuma recently trounced President Thabo Mbeki in a bitter election contest to take over as leader of the ANC, despite having the possibility of being charged with corruption hanging over his head.

Mbeki fired Zuma as deputy head of state in June 2005 after his financial adviser Schabir Shaik was found guilty of soliciting bribes on Zuma’s behalf in a long-running investigation centred on a 1999 arms deal.

Shaik is currently serving a 15-year jail term after being convicted on two counts of corruption and one of fraud after he sought to use Zuma’s political clout for their apparent mutual benefit.

This included paying Zuma some 1.3 million rand ($186,000) as a bribe to use his influence to stop an investigation into a 1999 deal to buy aircraft, ships and submarines.

Shaik also solicited a bribe on behalf of Zuma with French arms company Thint which would offer Zuma a 500,000-rand-a-year windfall in return for helping Thint and Shaik’s Nkobi Holdings obtain arms deal contracts.

The Weekender newspaper reported recently that new evidence showed a further 2.8 million rand changed hands between the two, and that Zuma fraudulently failed to declare any of the payments he received.

Initial corruption charges against Zuma were dropped in September last year after it emerged the state did not have enough evidence, after 15 months of court appearances and postponements.

Zuma’s supporters have portrayed the investigation as part of a conspiracy mounted against him by the Scorpions police unit which was set up by Mbeki.

Zuma’s attorney said the timing of the indictment was “peculiar” and that it proved the Scorpions were “influenced and their prosecution informed by political considerations.” “The timing of the service of the indictment is calculated to quickly redress the popular support and call to leadership of the ANC which Mr Zuma’s election so obviously demonstrates,” Hulley said in a press statement.

“These charges will be vigorously defended, in the context of the belief that the Scorpions have acted wrongly and with improper motive calculated to discredit Mr Zuma and ensure that he play no leadership role in the political future of our country.” Normally, as leader of the ruling party, Zuma would be virtually certain to succeed Mbeki as South Africa’s president in elections in 2009.—AFP