Zuma’s five biggest career scandals

PRETORIA: South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma will stand trial on 16 fraud, corruption and racketeering charges, prosecutors announced Friday, a month after he was forced to resign from office.

The charges had been shelved in 2009, the year Zuma, 75, became president. On February 14 he reluctantly stepped down under pressure from his ANC party in the face of mounting allegations, the latest revolving around his business friends, the Guptas who allegedly had undue influence on his administration. Here are five of his biggest scandals:

After protracted back-and-forth court cases, the National Prosecuting Authority in March 2018 decided Zuma was liable to face prosecution on corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering charges involving almost 800 counts relating to a 1990s arms deal.

The accusations relate to a multi-billion-dollar arms deal signed in 1999, when Zuma was deputy president. He and other officials allegedly accepted bribes from five European arms manufacturers to influence the choice of weaponry.

Zuma's adviser, Schabir Shaik, was jailed for 15 years in 2005. He was released on medical parole in 2009, the year Zuma became president.

The former president faces jail for the criminal charges over the hundreds of payments valued at $345,000 (280,000 euros), he allegedly received.

Zuma was found by the country's graft watchdog in 2014 to have "benefited unduly" from so-called security upgrades to his rural Nkandla residence in KwaZulu-Natal province. It said he should refund some of the money.

The work, paid for with taxpayers' money, cost $24 million and included a swimming pool, which was described as a fire-fighting facility, a cattle enclosure, an amphitheatre and a visitors' centre.