Shaik: Judges demand details
2006-09-26 00:07
Bloemfontein - Schabir Shaik might well be a worried man on Tuesday morning.
A full Bench of appeal judges gave his legal representatives a hard time on Monday as they tried to persuade the court that Judge Hilary Squires had erred in finding Shaik guilty and that his sentence was too heavy.
Shaik is appealing against three convictions - on two charges of corruption and one of fraud.
Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC for Shaik, said on Monday that the first charge of corruption, namely that Shaik and Jacob Zuma had a "generally corrupt relationship", was an "unusual" one.
"But, unusual in a completely wrong way."
'Very intimate relationship'
Gauntlett said this was not a simple case of corruption where someone gave a cash bribe in a brown envelope to a traffic officer, but that Shaik and Zuma had a "very special family and friendship relationship".
Everyone at Shaik's Nkobi group of companies knew that he knew Zuma and the payments to the former deputy president were not a secret.
"They had a very intimate relationship and nothing has changed," said Gauntlett.
He argued that Shaik's intentions with the payments to Zuma were legitimate.
Judge Squires found that it was Shaik's intention to "buy" Zuma's influence with the aim of promoting his private business interests.
Judge Piet Streicher asked Gauntlett about Zuma's duties, first as MEC for finance and tourism in KwaZulu-Natal, African National Congress deputy leader and then as deputy president: "Is it not also his (Zuma's) duty not to accept money for the performance of his official duties?"
Gauntlett answered yes, to which Streicher said the only question that remained for the court was whether it was Shaik's intention to use Zuma's official position to enrich himself.
Judge Mahomed Navsa pointed out to Gauntlett that he could not draw a "clinical distinction" between Zuma's duties.
"They manifest eventually in one person."
The only positive light for Shaik was when Streicher asked advocate Billy Downer SC, head of the State's legal team, on Monday afternoon what evidence the State had that Zuma had agreed to accept bribes from the French arms firm, Thint.
On the second charge of corruption, Judge Squires ruled that Shaik had arranged a bribe of R500 000 a year for Zuma.
The bribe deal was clinched in March 2000 at a meeting in Durban between Shaik, Zuma and Alain Thétard of Thint.
Judge asks about 'code'
The State's main piece of evidence for this charge - the infamous encrypted French fax - tells of a code by which Zuma agreed to corruption.
Streicher wanted to know how the State knew that Zuma was aware of this code and if this coded language was used only at the Durban meeting.
Downer said the meeting could not be seen in isolation and that, together with the fax, it was part of a scheme "which looks like corruption".
The case continues.