JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – South Africa’s Jacob Zuma said yesterday he had been “vindicated” after prosecutors dropped corruption charges against him and vowed to focus on leading the country after an election this month.
Zuma said an 8-year battle by prosecutors to convict him was “political and manipulative” and any suggestion that a “cloud” would hang over him because the case was dismissed on a technicality was a media fiction.
“There never was a case against me … I have been vindicated,” Zuma, dressed in a pin-stripe black suit and joking with reporters, told a news conference in Durban broadcast live on local television. “There is no cloud. There has never been a cloud … At the moment we have a country to run.”
