Zuma free of charges due to lack of evidence about crash
“The first thing I saw, I saw a person hanging [out] the taxi and dead,” said Jeffrey Phogole, who arrived at the accident scene almost two hours after the crash involving South African president Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane.
This happened at the beginning of the year when Zuma’s Porsche rear-ended Jabulani Dlamini’s minibus taxi in the rain on the M1 South off-ramp to Grayston Drive, Sandton. A woman was killed and three other people were injured.
According to Zuma’s statement, he lost control of his Porsche when it hit a puddle. It spun and hit the back of the taxi, coming to rest facing oncoming traffic. Zuma had apologised, Phogole said. “He said, ‘I’m sorry, there was a flood on the road and I hit the taxi’.”
The key witness, Jabulani Dlamini, was alledgedly snoring in court. The magistrate interrupted proceedings to reprimand Dlamini for sleeping. She asked him to stand and said: “It’s quite contentious of you to be sleeping through these proceedings. We can actually hear you snoring all the way to the bench.”
The National Prosecuting Authority said it had declined to prosecute Zuma of lack of evidence. A spokesman said at that time that the matter would be referred to a magistrate for an inquest to determine whether the incident was caused by human error.