The state has won a significant battle against Deputy President Jacob Zuma's financial adviser Schabir Shaik after the Durban High Court admitted a fax, ostensibly setting out a bribe agreement, into evidence.

Shaik must now fight a document he claims he had no sight of until the Scorpions came knocking on his door.

The judgment is, however, not the final outcome of the legal war between the state and Shaik. What it is, is a ruling on what weapons the state would be allowed to use. Whether this weapon will be successful is a question for another day.

As Judge Hilary Squires said in his judgment on Thursday: "The fax must at least be placed in the scales."

Downer winked at colleagues

It was a nervous morning in the Durban High Court. Billy Downer SC, the state's lead prosecutor, had already determined the mood three days ago, when he admitted that he believed the court's judging of the state's case would be severely hampered if the fax was not admitted into evidence.

But, this apart, he was fighting a whole crowd of doubting Thomases in the legal world who believed that he would never get the fax into evidence.

So, at 9.58 on Thursday morning, there were still 10 minutes to go before the state's all-or-nothing gambit. Downer and Shaik's counsel, Francois van Zyl SC, went to see the judge.

At 10.02 they returned to court and sat down. It was very quiet. At 10.05 Judge Squires stepped into court and announced that he had no intention of reading out his lengthy judgment, all 43-and-a-half pages, to the rest of the court, but said he had copies for those who wanted it.

At 10.08 Judge Squires said he would read only his conclusions and his order. He barely looked up from his papers as he stated: "Exhibit E25 and 26 and the ancillary typed drafts and translation, and the typed encrypted fax that is E29 and its translation, are admissible."

Defiant Shaik vowed to fight on

Downer winked at colleagues Anton Steynberg and Santhos Manilall.

Those who had been in court since October 11 knew that the judge was speaking about the fax ostensibly setting out a bribe agreement between Shaik, Zuma and Alain Thetard, a director of French arms company Thomson.

Like a ballerina stumbling on stage for a split second but quickly correcting herself, Shaik dropped his head before squaring his shoulders and jutting his jaw out at the bench while Judge Squires read the rest of the order.

The court was filled with Shaik's friends and family.

He had not even unpacked his normal assembly of accessories, including the day's vitamin pills, an array of felt markers and a vaporiser of Evian water.

As the fax went in, the prosecution's spirits soared. "Everything is going according to plan," Downer said outside court.

But a defiant Shaik vowed to fight on. He said they had also always planned for the event that all the state's documents would be entered into evidence. "I have to answer a lot more questions about information and (about) a fax I have no knowledge of," he said.

The woman who now claims to be his spin doctor, Ranjeni Munusamy, had to join the group of reporters outside court to hear what Shaik had to say. She was wearing a green card identifying her as one of the defence team, but Shaik said on Thursday that she was not his spin doctor.

In his judgment, Judge Squires said it was clear from the evidence presented by the state - especially in the context of "Zuma's inability to live within his salary and Shaik's increasing difficulty in funding the shortfall", and the "possible danger of public embarrassment or even prosecution" for Thomson, which was faced with an investigation into their part in the arms deal - that a plan had to be made.

"And it is strange, for example, that all the meetings between Thetard and Shaik were arranged in curiously opaque language to discuss an issue that was never described in writing," he said.

Shaik claims that it was all about a donation for the Jacob Zuma Education Trust.

Answering Van Zyl's argument that there was no proof that the fax had been indeed sent to Paris, Judge Squires said: "That no sign of the received messages were found in Paris or Mauritius seems to me to be hardly surprising."

"Anyone at head office being advised of the achievement of this sort of thing - if it was, in truth, the arrangement to pay a bribe - would normally be astute *1 to leave no sign of it lying about."

He also described the importance of the fax to the state's case: "Coming from one of the alleged conspirators, its probative value would be high because it is evidence of the completion of a plan to offer money to a recipient who could beneficially influence external events to the advantage of the conspirators."

He wrote that the fax "reports the eventual achievement of a suggested plan that had been some months in bringing to fruition. It seems inarguably to be the final step in the accomplishment of an agreement to pay Zuma the money indicated in exchange for his influence to protect and further Thomson's interests, in which Shaik had a substantial interest."

Judge Squires, however, found some of the documents seized during a Scorpions raid in Mauritius and France to be inadmissible as evidence.

He also admitted a statement made by Malaysian businessman David Wilson as evidence against Shaik.

The trial continues on Monday.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.

*1 Even a Thomson executive can sometimes be astute, normally in trying to obliterate the evidence trails in their decades of bribing officials in third world countries, or in circumventing the OECD's Anti-Corruption Regulations.

One can but wonder if their astuteness extends to ensuring that their R5 billion (2005 Rands - 4 vessels)) Combat Suite will be able to successfully destroy a 0,1 m² cross-section, sea-skimming, counter-manoeuvring, zenith-diving, 100 kg high-explosive projectile approaching one of our R3 billion each (2005 Rands - 1 vessel) Corvettes at Mach 2 during the 15 seconds available to engage the threat with 250 rounds of its 35 mm dual-barrelled cannon (gun), with a 99% probability.

Any bets?