President Jacob Zuma's lawyers said the DA's legal bid to prosecute him on corruption charges was an exercise in futility as the case against him was "dead". In their heads of argument, Zuma's legal team stated yesterday: "Whether by design or otherwise, the DA has unfortunately overlooked the fact that the National Prosecuting Authority formally withdrew the charges against Zuma back in 2009 and did so out of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court."The charges are thus dead and not automatically revived."Zuma's legal team is headed by advocate Kemp J Kemp.Zuma's team called the legal challenge an abuse of process, stating: "The answering affidavits of the NPA and Zuma demonstrate that the NPA decision was supported by a rational basis."The team said the former head of the Scorpions, Leonard McCarthy, had been a strong supporter of former president Thabo Mbeki."That, of course, was his right."But that right did not extend to utilising constitutionally enshrined prosecutorial powers, to be exercised without fear, favour or prejudice, for ulterior purposes and to promote or conduct the prosecution of Zuma through illegal means by deceiving the courts."Kemp said the NPA, particularly the Scorpions, had utilised its vast investigative and prosecution powers to covertly engineer a specific outcome in the presidential election process.Kemp said it was therefore patently incorrect to argue that McCarthy was not politically motivated to charge Zuma."McCarthy indeed timed the indictment and did so with haste after the results of the Polokwane voting."The DA earlier filed its heads of argument to challenge the decision to drop charges against Zuma.The opposition party contends that the NPA affidavit is flawed and provides no real rationale for why the corruption charges were dropped.The charges against Zuma were dropped in April 2009 after secretly recorded tapes of conversations McCarthy held on Zuma's case were released...