Shaiks not watching Zuma case

2008-11-28 14:17

Durban - The family of convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik are not paying particular attention to the Jacob Zuma hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeals in Bloemfontein, his brother Yunus Shaik said on Friday.

Schabir Shaik, who was Zuma's former financial adviser, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of two counts of corruption and one of fraud on June 2 2005.

One of the charges related to alleged attempts by Shaik to facilitate a bribe for Zuma. As a consequence of the ruling, Zuma was dismissed from his post as the country's deputy president by former president Thabo Mbeki.

"We did not even know it was today (Friday). And it doesn't matter because we all have our own lives," Yunus Shaik said in response to questions at the start of a hearing in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein against a high court ruling favouring Zuma, who has since been elected president of the ANC.

"Everyone has a job and that's what they have to do," said Shaik.

It was only when Sapa contacted him that he turned on the television to check if there was a live broadcast of the Bloemfontein hearing, he said.

The NPA is seeking to have a Pietermaritzburg High Court ruling on September 12 by Judge Chris Nicholson overturned on appeal.

Nicholson ruled that the NPA's decision to charge Zuma was unlawful because he had not been allowed make representations to the National Director of Public Prosecutions before he was charged.

Shaik still in hospital

On Friday, the KwaZulu-Natal health department confirmed that the 51-year-old Schabir Shaik was still in hospital.

He has spent lengthy periods in hospital for severe hypertension and other blood-pressure related illnesses since his incarceration.

"Everyone, like prison authorities, the doctors, and the hospital staff accept that Schabir is ill and gravely so," said his brother.

"The public can accept it or not because these are matters decided by doctors."

He said the family had been through a lot this year, and with his brother constantly in the media, "it's been hard on the family".

"I get to see him from time to time... and unlike a prison, the hospital visits are not as restricted."

In August this year, the National Assembly's correctional services committee questioned why Shaik was spending so much time in hospital instead of prison.

Committee chairperson Dennis Bloem said he was concerned that Shaik had been in hospital for far too long and that his condition was not improving.

He said it seemed Shaik was continuously "lying in hospital" while he was supposed to be in prison.

Shaik could not remain in hospital for the duration of his 15-year sentence and Bloem said a solution had to be found.

- SAPA