Pretoria : Judgment was reserved on Wednesday in the trial of accountant Ian Pierce for allegedly failing to co-operate with a probe into corruption in the government's multi-billion rand arms deal.

Pierce has been charged with ignoring a summons to appear before investigators, giving false evidence, and failing to provide documents about the financial affairs of Futuristic Business Solutions (FBS), of which he is a director.

David Feldman, for Pierce, told the Commercial Crimes Court in Pretoria his client never received the summons, and had tried his best to comply with the request for documents.

At the close of the State's case, Feldman asked for the case to be dismissed.

"There is no case for the accused to meet on any of the four charges," he contended.

The Scorpions investigating unit required the FBS documents as part of their probe into the arms deal. Futuristic Business Solutions is a shareholder in African Defence Systems (ADS), which benefited from the arms deal.

Last month, the Mail & Guardian reported the Scorpions were investigating deputy president Jacob Zuma for an alleged attempt to secure a R500 000-a-year bribe from Thomson-CSF (since renamed Thales) - a French defence conglomerate that, with ADS, was part of a German consortium chosen to supply South Africa with four new corvette warships.

The Scorpions were looking for evidence of a possible hidden beneficial interest by Zuma in ADS and that it was considered "reasonable to assume" that this might be via ADS' South African minority shareholders - including FBS, the report said.

Zuma has denied the claims.

The first charge against Pierce relates to him allegedly ignoring a summons to appear before a Scorpions' investigating director on July 10 last year, and the second to failing on the same date to provide books and documents.

He is thirdly charged with giving false evidence to the investigating director on December 11, by allegedly stating certain documents were with the company's auditors when he knew they were not.

The fourth charge relates to him failing to produce cash books, ledgers and other FBS financial documents on the same date.

On the first two charges, Feldman argued the State's case fell flat since there was no proof Pierce had received the summons.

Prosecutor Dries van Rensburg, however, said an FBS receptionist who signed for the document, had testified to mentioning the summons to her boss.

On the charge of lying, Feldman said independent auditors have since conceded they had in fact received certain documents from Pierce, which the State contends were still missing. Also, his client had merely said he "believed" the documents were with the auditors, Feldman said.

Turning to the fourth charge, he contended Pierce had submitted to investigators all the documents he could possibly find, as soon as he could.

"I don't know what more the accused could have done," Feldman said.

Van Rensburg said Pierce had made no effort to supply the State with the documents requested.

"It was only after the accused was arrested that the State started receiving documents here and there," he said.

Judgment is to be handed down on Thursday morning.

With acknowledgement to www.news24.co.za.