KwaZulu-Natal High Court Judge President Thoba Portia Poyo-Dlwati has set down dates from April 14 to June 20 and July 21 to September 19, 2025, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of South Africa said. In this regard, South African Judge Nkosinathi Chili, who presided over a brief pre-trial appearance in the matter in the same court on Monday, set down August 29 this year for another pre-trial conference between the parties. "Given that the judge president has set down those two terms in the second and third terms for the continuation of the trial, we hope that there won't be any hurdles that we will have to overcome now and that the trial will finally proceed," NPA spokesperson Mtunzi Mhaga was quoted as saying by South African news portal News24. "We hope that on August 29 that pre-trial will deal with any outstanding pre-trial issues so that on 14 April 2025 the trial can proceed," Mhaga said. The matter has been dragging through the South African courts for 21 years since 2003, when Zuma was first charged with corruption relating to the country's multi-billion rand "Arms Deal". In March, the KwaZulu-Natal High Court dismissed a fresh bid by Zuma to have lead prosecutor in his corruption trial, Billy Downer, removed, accusing him of bias and leaking information to the media. Zuma's corruption trial was initially set to start in May 2021 after two years of numerous delays and preliminary applications. Zuma, 82, who was South Africa's president from 2009 to 2018, faces multiple charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in the Pietermaritzburg High Court relating to the alleged fraudulent arms procurement deal involving French arms company Thales, worth over two billion dollars, in 1999 when he was deputy president. Zuma has denied all the charges, saying he is a victim of a political "witch-hunt" by the then ruling party under former President Thabo Mbeki, who was in power from 1999 to 2008. The charges against the former South African leader were reinstated in March 2018 by President Cyril Ramaphosa, a month after Zuma was forced to resign by the leadership of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power since 1994. South Africa's multi-billion rand arms acquisition programme in the late 1990s involved the purchase of weaponry and military equipment by the African National Congress government led by Nelson Mandela in 1999 at a cost of 30 billion rand (five billion dollars in 1999). The post-apartheid government's arms deal involved several European companies from Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France and South Africa. French defence company Thales is also facing corruption and money laundering charges, which it has denied. Read Also: Tribunal Constitucional da África do Sul rejeita recurso de Jacob Zuma (Portuguese version)