In an affadavit first published by the Beeld newspaper this week, Lieutenant Colonel Christine Anderson stated that she had facilitated the landing of a plane at Waterkloof Air Base transporting wedding guests from India to a Gupta family wedding in the North West province on instructions apparently from Zuma himself. Anderson’s statement makes it clear that Bruce Koloane – the former chief of state protocol – explained to her that Zuma wanted the plane to use the air base.

Koloane has since gone on record to say that he lied in using Zuma’s name to arrange logistics for the wedding. Koloane has since been internally disciplined and demoted.

But here’s the problem. No one can confirm Anderson’s affidavit. Even if Koloane changed his tune, and testified that he had in fact been acting on orders from Jacob Zuma, he would be regarded as a deeply unreliable witness given to wanton sprees of lying, and would be of little help to corroborate Anderson’s testimony. Jacob Zuma cannot be called as a witness to confirm or deny Anderson’s affidavit, because technically a civilian president isn’t bound by the jurisdiction of a military tribunal.

Which either makes Anderson’s affidavit a tragically-flawed piece of evidence, or a masterstroke in blame-shifting. Just as no one can corroborate her claim, there are no documents to contradict it either, apart from Koloane’s insistence that he lied in stating that he acted on Zuma’s instructions.

This is, in short, a massive bugger up.

[Source : Mail & Guardian]