Schabir Shaik furious at Scorpions who searched his wife's underwear.

Businessman Schabir Shaik, the man at the centre of a criminal probe into allegations of bribery in the R66-billion arms deal, has dismissed the case against him as a conspiracy.

Shaik, who sits on the boards of several companies that benefited from the arms deal, was charged in November last year with possessing confidential Cabinet minutes. He has not yet pleaded.

Recently, an investigator with the elite Scorpions unit claimed in an affidavit that Shaik had facilitated a request by Deputy President Jacob Zuma that a foreign arms company pay him a R500 000-a-year bribe.

In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Shaik strongly defended his relationship with Zuma .

He said that if Zuma felt Shaik was embarrassing him, Zuma would have ended their relationship a long time ago.

"I knew him when he did not have a cent. Today he is deputy president. Tomorrow he may be nothing. He will still be my friend," Shaik said. "I don't mind going to jail. Do you think I am worried about my fancy BMW or my fancy penthouse, my fancy houses?"

Shaik insisted that investigators were using the tactics of apartheid-era police. "When they enter your home . . . you will see that you have no rights. They lift up your wife's panties . . . my wife's panties . . . all very expensive panties. Now you tell me, what does that have to do with a defence contract?"

Attacking the Sunday Times's recent article in which it was disclosed that he flew to Senegal with Zuma on a government aircraft, Shaik said: "Why don't you ask Bulelani [Ngcuka, the National Director of Public Prosecutions], how much he is costing the state with all the cases he is losing - instead of asking the deputy president why he's flying his financial adviser to Malaysia and Dakar?"

Sipho Ngwema, spokesman for the Scorpions (which claim a 94% conviction rate), yesterday refused to respond to Shaik's comments. "We will pursue this in the courts," Ngwema said.

Shaik went on to claim that documents seized at his office included the deputy president's financial records.

"The Scorpions have looked into my bank account and into the deputy president's bank account. They did not find any money."

He claimed the Scorpions were "desperately" trying to establish a link between the sale of R500 000 worth of shares in one of his companies, Nkobi Investments, to French arms company Thomson-CSF and the bribery allegations.

The French would deny the bribery claims, Shaik said. The fact that the claims had become public knowledge showed that the Scorpions were trying to "package and perfume the truth", he charged. "One day I am going to talk, and Bulelani will run back to his hole in the Eastern Cape."

Shaik also denied that he had possessed classified documents, but he did confirm that the Scorpions had seized some handwritten notes of his brother, Shamin (Chippy) Shaik.

"These are not Cabinet minutes," he added. Chippy Shaik was the government's chief of acquisitions during the arms deal.

Shaik confirmed that, since being charged with possessing Cabinet documents, he had twice accompanied Zuma abroad on government aircraft.

Vowing to prove his innocence, on Friday he produced for the first time:

A copy of an invitation to the Nepad conference in Dakar; and

The hotel bill and receipt bearing his credit card details to prove that he had paid for his own accommodation.

Shaik's lawyer last week told the Sunday Times that his client had attended the Nepad (New Partnership for Africa's Development) conference in Dakar after being invited by the "secretary of Nepad". Shaik said this week he was not part of a South African government delegation although he flew with Zuma on board a government aircraft.

He said he had not been able to get a flight to Senegal, and merely accompanied the deputy president as he knew that he too would be attending the conference.

He said that he paid for his own flight back to South Africa two days later.

Shaik added that Thomson-CSF (now renamed Thales) had donated R250 000 to President Thabo Mbeki's Crossroads Education Trust Fund.

Making no attempt to hide his bitterness towards the Scorpions, Shaik said Ngcuka was making arrests " like a wild crackerjack, and then he looks for the truth".

"I am not going to apologise to anybody. I don't have to toe anybody's line," he said.

With acknowledgements to Mzilikazi wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout, Andre Jurgens and the Sunday Times.