Former Scorpion Gerda Ferreira told the Durban High Court how they managed a simultaneous search and seizure operation for documents relating to South Africa's multi-million rand arms deal in South Africa, Mauritius and France.

Ferreira, who was testifying in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, said once the necessary documents for the operations were obtained in South Africa, they used them in their application for the operations in the other two countries on October 9, 2001.

Ferreira was sent to France to fast-track the application but encountered "a lot of bureaucracy *1", she said.

Once permission was granted, she and two other South African colleagues returned to France but were only allowed to observe and not take part in search and seizure operations at premises which included the offices of Thomson CSF.

Ferreira said they were allowed to see the documents immediately after they were confiscated, but were not allowed to make copies. They returned to South Africa with the assurance that the documents would be sent to them.

She said in some cases only part of the documents which the French police thought was relevant had been taken, and they were not allowed to see the entire document to examine the context that these sections came from.

The Scorpions only received the documents from France a year later.

Although Ferreira has not mentioned a so-called encrypted fax *2, which allegedly records a half a million rand per year bribe for Deputy President Jacob Zuma from Thomson CSF, it was previously reported that this was one of the documents that the Scorpions were hoping to find.

Prosecutor Billy Downer said Ferreira's testimony would prove that the State's chain of evidence was complete and that the documents presented to the court were what they were purported to be.

With acknowledgement to Sapa.

*1      Not all of it a la escargot.

*2      The received versions, it seems, were sadly dispatched to either the ubiquitous Thomson-CSF shredder, or to the great vault - far from the grubby paws of gendarmes and foreign investigating agencies intent on incarcerating two of their own.