South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma has lost a legal bid to stop documents being used as evidence in his corruption trial that starts next week.

The country's Constitional Court upheld earlier rulings allowing prosecutors to present documents seized from Mr Zuma's home and other locations.

Mr Zuma is accused of racketeering, corruption, money laundering and fraud in connection with a giant arms deal.

Mr Zuma, favourite to succeed Thabo Mbeki as president, denies the charges.

He Turkish court rejects demand to ban ruling party ...
Mbeki meets Mugabe in Harare ... was the country's deputy president before being fired in 2005 when his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was found guilty of soliciting bribes and jailed for 15 years in connection with an arms deal.

Mr Zuma then went on trial, but the case collapsed in 2006 when the prosecution said it was not ready to proceed - a court had ruled that documents obtained during raids could not be used by prosecutors because the search warrants used by police were illegal.

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld appeals against this ruling, saying that the tens of thousands of pages of seized documents could be used in evidence.

Mr Zuma argues that the case is politically motivated.

He won a bitter campaign against President Mbeki to become African National Congress leader last December.

(BBC)

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