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South Africa: 'Why I wish that Zuma was dead'Date Posted: Monday 01-Jun-2009Jacob Zuma's rape accuser says she will never reconcile with the former deputy president.
And the 32-year-old, who was granted humanitarian asylum in the Netherlands, claims she still feels betrayed by Zuma.
In an interview granted to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant on Tuesday, she hit out at Zuma, saying: "How on earth can someone have sex with his daughter? It is too disgusting for words. I considered him to be my father.
"I wish he was dead. I would like him to no longer exist, to be spared of seeing his face popping up in the newspapers," the woman, nicknamed "Khwezi" by her supporters, told De Volkskrant.
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| 'I have been raped earlier by comrades' |
And she didn't hold back on her criticism of the ANC, saying: "I have been raped earlier by comrades. No one dares to come out into the open about that. That is why nothing is ever done about it."
Speaking about the threats made against her after she charged Zuma, Khwezi said: "Many people told me that they feared for my life. But nearly no one stood up for me. I knew that I could trust no one. And that is still the case.
"The ANC was my family, and I've lost my family."
She described her sexual encounter with Zuma in graphic detail in the interview, saying the experience was a massive betrayal of trust.
In the months after Khwezi laid a rape charge against Zuma, her mother's home was burgled twice and she was repeatedly taunted as she entered and exited the Johannesburg High Court during the trial.
| 'I cannot think that I would not have gone through with it' |
Posters reading "Burn the bitch" and the crowd's attempted stoning of a woman they believed was Khwezi did nothing to ease her fears.
Despite the pain she suffered, however, Khwezi is adamant that she doesn't regret going through with the case.
"I cannot think that I would not have gone through with it. If I did not bring this case before the judge, I could not have lived with myself," she said.
It emerged in the interview that it was not the South African authorities who arranged for Khwezi to relocate to the Netherlands. Instead, her close friend Shaun Mellors - a local Aids consultant - contacted the Netherlands Aids Funds, who arranged for her and her mother to move to the Netherlands.
The Dutch authorities this week granted Khwezi and her mother permission to stay in the country for the next five years. They reportedly arrived in the country soon after the trial ended on May 11.
Dutch spokesperson Jantinus Smallenbroek said it was not clear if Khwezi and her mother had been granted asylum. He said that granting asylum usually meant that the person was being persecuted for political or religious reasons and feared for her life, which he did not think applied here.
During the rape trial, Khwezi claimed she had gone to visit the man she viewed as a fatherly figure. She stayed overnight in the spare room and claimed that Zuma had come to her and raped her, despite her having cried "No".
Zuma claimed that it was Khwezi who had gone into his bedroom and seduced him. He admitted to having unprotected sex with her, despite knowing that she was HIV-positive.
While Khwezi claimed she was a lesbian and had not consented to sex with Zuma, his legal team called a string of witnesses who testified to having been accused of rape by the complainant. Zuma was acquitted of the rape charge.
Speaking to The Star earlier this month, one of Khwezi's closest friends said she was worried that the young woman was "nowhere near recovering from this whole thing".
"She really wants to finish writing her boo... but I know that she sometimes struggles to keep her head above water. I don't really know if she'll ever be able to recover."
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