Former president Jacob Zuma's estranged wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, known as MaThuli, says the National Prosecuting Authority (NPPA) must either charge her with being behind a plot to kill her husband or she will take civil action against the state.
According to Times Select, Ntuli-Zuma was told by National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams that she was officially a suspect in the investigation into the alleged plot to kill Jacob Zuma. But 18 months later, the NPA reportedly still has no case, and the docket was sent back to the Hawks last month for more investigation.
Allegedly, Zuma travelled to Russia in August 2014, where doctors said he had been poisoned.
The head of the NPA's Priority Crimes Litigation Unit, Torie Pretorius, was reportedly assigned to the case. He reportedly threatened to drop the case unless the Hawks could produce more evidence by the end of May.
In February, Ntuli-Zuma's lawyer, Ulrich Roux, reportedly wrote to the NPA, complaining that his client had been saddled with the allegations against her since 2015, when the attempted assassination reportedly happened. She was told by then-minister of state security, David Mahlobo, to leave the Nkandla compound under a cloud in January that year.
Roux said he has reportedly had no feedback from the NPA on the case.
The Hawks confirmed to Times Select that the case was referred back to them for further investigation, and admitted that there had been challenges with the investigation.
Roux reportedly said Ntuli-Zuma was considering her options, including taking civil action against the state.
In August 2017, the Hawks told News24 that the docket was nearly ready, and that "it will be short space of time" before it would be sent to the NPA for a decision on whether a prosecution would go ahead. When the docket was sent to Pretorius, he was working on the Ahmed Timol case and the prosecuting service reportedly said he would not have had a chance to look at it yet.
But in January this year, the docket was sent back to the Hawks for more investigation, Rapport reported. There were "a lot of outstanding issues", the NPA said.
Roux said at the time: "There is absolutely no reason why this case should be delayed. The NPA cannot even confirm if my client is an accused person or a witness.
"The only reason for this is simply that there isn't any evidence which can lead to prosecution.
"If there was proof that she had ostensibly tried to poison Zuma, they would have arrested and charged her with attempted murder.
"The fact that she had been kicked out of Nkandla in January 2015 already, and has still not been charged, is a definitive indication that the state and the police have no witnesses or evidence against her."