My dad ‘will be strong as ever’ by time of his trial in May – Duduzane Zuma
‘I’m not asking him for any favours’
“People need to understand that it was really touch and go, just like it was touch and go for you. It was really touch and go for the now deputy president. He was obviously thankful to myself and yourself,” he told former president Zuma.
The younger Zuma added: “It’s a scary thing to see, how he was detailing it and the pain that he was in. Poison affects people in different ways, but this one was a slow poison that was killing him from the inside through his core, that was what the mobility problem was.”
Duduzane explained how, when he went back to Moscow to fetch Mabuza, he was accompanied by Tony Gupta.
WATCH | ‘That’s my guy,’ Zuma says about his relationship with Tony Gupta
When Mabuza arrived back in the country, he spent a few days with his wife at one of the Gupta homes in Saxonwold.
After the life altering interaction between Mabuza and Duduzane, the relationship broke down, he said.
“There has been breakdown in my relationship with him and not from my side, from his side. I clearly don’t know, maybe myself and him will have that discussion one day. He has always been someone I held in high regard. I’m not asking him for any favours. I have never asked him for any favours. I was part of a team that saved his life. I’m not looking for preferential treatment.”
The Zuma men also discussed the death of Vusi Nhlakanipho, the former president’s son who died at the age of 25. He died at Milpark Hospital in 2005 after suffering complications of systematic lupus erythematosus.
During the broadcast, former president Zuma alleges that Nhlakanipho became collateral damage after his enemies failed to get to him.
“Now that I know what took him, it’s what pains me even more. I now know that it was people who were trying to kill me or to reach me, but who were finding it difficult and who then took a decision to create something that would pain me. It was a failure to take your life (Duduzane) that they went to the young men,” Zuma said, adding that he believed his son was killed when his enemies tampered with his treatment.
