Auditor Johan van der Walt took the stand this morning in the Durban trial of businessman Schabir Shaik, with all his guns blazing for a third day of cross-examination.

After facing half an hour of scathing attacks on his report yesterday, Van der Walt came back this morning with a few salvoes of his own.

Shaik's senior counsel, Francois van Zyl, accused Van der Walt yesterday of not considering all the repayments that Deputy President Jacob Zuma made to Shaik.

This morning the auditor, armed with an A4 file, pointed out document after document to the court showing that he had.

"It's the pattern and not the single pieces that matter," Van der Walt said.

As a parting shot he told the court that even though Nkobi Holdings, for instance, paid R21 000 in ANC levies on behalf of Zuma, it was Shaik who pocketed the repayment.

As Van der Walt's evidence continued so did the clandestine whispering of the defence counsel.

Yesterday afternoon Kessie Naidu SC, who is watching proceedings on behalf of the French arms company Thint, said "nobody is un-cross-examinable".

Van der Walt, however, continued to tell the court what he had seemingly unearthed overnight, this time explaining that Shaik either misrepresented payments due from Thint to his bank or misrepresented them to the court.

He showed the court a document he had found in which the financial director of Nkobi Holdings indicated to the bank that they were expecting another half a million rand to be paid to them from France.

This payment was due to be made in terms of a service provider agreement, which the state said was a way to hide a bribe to Zuma, facilitated by Shaik.

In explanation, Shaik however made it clear that this agreement was terminated long before this presentation to the bank.

Van der Walt said Shaik was intimately involved in these negotiations with the bank about Nkobi's overdraft. He offered Van Zyl a look at the document, which Van Zyl declined for the time being.

Yesterday Van Zyl told the court that Van der Walt had been selective in the use of documents to compile his reports.

Van der Walt said he had had 152 000 documents to sift through, and had used those he considered to be relevant.

Shaik has pleaded not guilty to two charges of corruption and a charge of fraud.

One of the corruption charges against him relates to R1.2 million in payments made to Zuma as part of what the state has described as a "general corrupt relationship".

The other is an allegation that Shaik had solicited a bribe of R1 million from Thint for Zuma.

Van der Walt explained to the court how he viewed the relationship between Shaik and Zuma: "Any relationship can evolve over time. Payments could be made in friendship. This relationship (between Shaik and Zuma) evolved from friendship into a different animal, where one cannot exclude the possibility of a mutually beneficial financial relationship."

The state is alleging that the amount of payments to Zuma, and the lack of evidence of an attempt to repay the money, was suggestive of corruption.

But Van Zyl hinted that the state might not have looked hard enough to find records of the repayments.

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Daily News.