French arms dealer and not Durban businessman probably to blame says counsel

French arms dealer Alain Thetard could have disguised a request for a donation to the Jacob Zuma Education Trust as a bribe, as this was more likely to be considered favourably by his bosses.

This argument was put forward yesterday by Durban businessman Schabir Shaik's counsel, Francois van Zyl SC, to motivate why his client should be acquitted on a charge of corruption. Shaik stands accused of soliciting a bribe on behalf of Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

The prosecution used a fax as the "smoking gun" in their attempt to prove that Shaik was guilty of corruption.

The fax was written by Thetard, stating that he, Shaik and Zuma had agreed that his company, Thomson, would pay the deputy president R500 000 a year in exchange for his protection and support.

But, Van Zyl pointed out, there were too many doubts and contradictions in the prosecution's theory of how things had happened for the court to convict his client of a crime that could see him face a minimum 15 years imprisonment.

"It is more than just reasonably possible that Thetard might have misrepresented the true position.

"He might have done so to enable him . . . to convince his head office to make R500 000 a year available for allegedly 'bribing' Zuma, while the true reason for the payment . . . could have been the donation.

"Knowing that Thomson (France) had a problem with the making of donations, the request . . . for funds . . . could have been disguised as a payment of a bribe."

Van Zyl took the court through the state's case, and said he believed it to be riddled with doubt.

He argued that the state had said the fax was supported by six things :

A meeting between Shaik and Thetard in September 1999.
Thetard met one of Thomson's most senior officials, Jean-Paul Perrier, in Paris in November 1999.
Zuma, Thetard and Shaik met in Durban in March 2000.
At this time there was an investigation into the arms deal.
Subsequent correspondence by Shaik referred to an issue relating to Zuma in extremely opaque language.
A service-provider agreement was entered into between one of Shaik's companies and Thomson - which the state said was disguising the payment of the bribe money.

Van Zyl pointed out that his client had said he knew nothing about the fax.

What the state called suspicious meetings and correspondence had in fact referred to negotiations for a donation to the Jacob Zuma Education Trust.

Van Zyl said Shaik's evidence could at least be "reasonably possibly true". In contrast, the content of the fax should not be accepted as the truth.

Van Zyl argued that "one should be extremely careful to simply accept everything Thetard says or writes".

Thetard has refused to come to South Africa to give evidence in the trial.

Thetard's secretary, Sue Delique, had complained (on occasion) that what Thetard "wrote and what happened were two different things".

Van Zyl also said that Thetard had given "a number of totally conflicting versions" when asked to explain the content of the encrypted fax.

Van Zyl was expected to continue with his argument today.

The acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.