We already know that Jacques Pauw won’t be getting a Christmas card from members of the Zuma family any time soon.

Pauw’s book, The President’s Keepers, has been smashing records since its release, but that doesn’t mean Pauw is popular with all of Jacob Zuma’s adversaries.

Take Julius Malema, for example, who seems to be taking the downfall of his old political adversary rather hard.

Without a bogeyman to rally his supporters against, Juju has gone back to talking up his more extreme rhetoric. His party is also caught up in the Tom Moyane / SARS mess, with EFF chairperson Advocate Dali Mpofu choosing to defend the former commissioner.

Pauw took issue with this, sending two tweets that set the wheels in motion:

Cue Juju coming out swinging:

Malema ended up demanding an apology from Pauw, and threatened legal action against him.

This leads us to the open letter, which Pauw posted to Facebook. It’s a long one, so we’ll just pick out some of the sharper barbs bel0w:

You call on me to set the record straight.

You are right. I was wrong in saying that you received a loan from Mazzotti to pay your tax bill.

You in fact received a R1 million loan from Kyle Phillips – a business partner of Mazzotti [below left] and his co-director in Carnilinx, an independent tobacco company.

This was reported in the Sunday Times and other newspapers in 2015. The Sunday Times quoted your lawyer as saying that you took the loan from Phillips after another benefactor failed to make a payment to you.

The newspaper said that you had admitted to SARS that you had received the R1 million loan from Phillips.

You never denied any of these reports. I therefore assume that it is safe to say that it was true that you had received a R1 million loan from Phillips.

Would I apologize to you?

No, because I believe it is irrelevant whether you took a loan from Mazzotti or Phillips because – as I will show you – they are partners-in-crime in Carnilinx…

I am sure, Mr Malema, that you might not be fully aware of what had transpired at Carnilinx, but it does beg the question whether Mazzotti, Phillips and Sayed entertained you with their proceeds of crime?  It is also possible that it was from these proceeds that Mazzotti paid R200,000 to the EFF to register for the 2014 elections…

Mazzotti and Phillips are no choir boys and you must be aware of it. You must know that Mazzotti mingles with unsavoury characters. Do you know that apartheid assassin Craig Williamson was one of his business partners? And that you have been photographed with Mazzotti in the presence of self-confessed killer and gangster Mikey Schultz?

In summary – Nah, Pauw will not be issuing that apology.

There are few South African journalists as clued up on the corruption at the centre of State Capture as Pauw, and you can be sure that he picked up a few nuggets of info about other politicians during his research for The President’s Keepers.

Whether or not he’s keeping his biggest guns for further down the line remains to be seen, but I’m sure Julius will keep on poking the bear until we find out.

[sources:enca&facebook]