Links between these two high rollers have been gossiped about and reported on before. It’s no big secret that shortly after his 2006 arrest on rape charges, JZ made a shimmy over to Tripoli for five days where he met with Colonel Gaddafi. Now JZ and the Colonel have had a little phone conversation.

BBC Monitoring, a division of BBC that monitors media sources from around the world, quoted Zuma on Monday as calling on the African Union to “take decisive action and uncover the conspiracy that Libya is facing.”

It also quoted him as “stressing the need not to depend on tendentious reports circulated by foreign media outlets,” and to listen to the Libyan media in this regard.

And by listen to the Libyan media you mean full on listen to real propaganda, boss?

Anyway, these quotes also prompted DA parliamentary leader Athol Trollip to put it to Zuma on Wednesday and ask for some rightly deserved clarity on the phone call. He wanted to know why Zuma didn’t think the Colonel should be stepping down.

Good friends hold hands

As usual, good old number two, Zizi Kodwa, also JZ’s spokesperson, has come out and not really said anything of substance in attempting to back his man and quell the public’s curiosity.

“The Presidency will not be drawn into rumours and distortions of the conversation with the Leader of Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had called to explain his side of the story,” explained number two in an official statement on the Presidency’s website late Wednesday evening.

Supposedly money changed hands during that little aforementioned visit that took place in 2006 too. No guesses as to which way that exchanging went.

[Sources: M&G, ThePresidency]