A French arms company executive told the Durban High Court on Friday it was usual to have high level political contacts when attempting to sell arms abroad.

Pierre Moynot is a former head of South African operations for the company Thomson CSF. He is the first representative of the French arms company to testify in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial.

On Friday Shaik's advocate Francois van Zyl questioned Moynot about a letter Thomson CSF wrote to former Umkhonto we Sizwe commander Joe Modise in the early 90s.

Moynot said at that stage they knew Modise was likely to be the next defence minister and they wanted to introduce their company to him. In 1993 there were arms sanctions against South Africa. According to Moynot, Thomson CSF is partly owned by the French government and needs prior authorisation from the government even to tender for a project. He said he first met Shaik at a company called ADE. Thomson CSF, ADE, Shaik's company Nkobi Holdings and a company called Plessey tried to form a new company to compete for the government's tender for corvettes for the navy.

However, those plans fell apart and the company was never formed. Early plans were changed in 1995 when then-president Nelson Mandela said South Africa's weapons needs would be ascertained by Parliament and published in a white paper. Thomson CSF chose Shaik as a black economic empowerment (BEE) partner. At one stage, they received a visitor at the headquarters in Paris who said that Mandela and the then-deputy president Thabo Mbeki disliked Shaik and that Thomson had made a mistake by choosing him as a BEE partner.

Moynot said they later discovered the information was false.

 With acknowledgement to Sapa.