The former head of the Heath Special Investigating Unit, advocate Willem Heath SC, is expected to give evidence in the Durban High Court today as a State witness in the trial of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik, who has pleaded not guilty to two charges of corruption and one of fraud.

Two former members of the now defunct unit gave evidence yesterday about their plans to investigate the arms deal. Earlier in the week the court also heard that MPs Patricia de Lille and Gavin Woods had wanted the unit to look into the arms deal.

Advocate Gerhard Visagie testified yesterday that the Heath unit had been optimistic that President Thabo Mbeki would give it a proclamation to investigate the arms deal, as one of the areas it was keen to explore was whether the contracts were in the public interest.

Advocate Jannie Lubbe SC, a senior legal consultant for the unit, testified that he and the former director of public prosecutions of the Cape, advocate Frank Kahn SC, had advised that the unit should be allowed to investigate. He said it had been too early to tell whether criminal offences had been committed *1, but said there were sufficient grounds to warrant an investigation.

However, on January 18 2001, former justice minister Penuell Maduna phoned him to ask whether there was prima facie evidence of a criminal offence committed during the acquisition process. Lubbe said there was none at that stage.

The next day Mbeki announced he was not going to give a proclamation to the Heath unit to investigate the arms deal. Yesterday the State bettered its own record of four witnesses a day with one more. The other three witnesses who gave evidence were:

l David Reed, an auditor with Arthur Anderson, who confirmed earlier evidence by colleague Gary Parker. They were the auditors for French arms company Thomson when Sue Delique, former secretary to Alain Thetard, shared her concerns about a document that seemed to set out a bribe to Deputy President Jacob Zuma. He said they could find nothing in Thomson records to substantiate her claims.

Ingrid Havemann, who was involved in securing Zuma a bond for his Nkandla Development.

Abdool Qadir Mangerah, who said he had lent about R154 000 to Zuma. Shaik paid the money back to him through Clegton Investments. He said that even though Zuma was "extremely liberal" with his money he always tried to help others.

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Argus.

*1 But it was surely not too early to tell whether civil unlawfulness had been perpetrated *1 and there certainly were sufficient grounds to warrant an investigation.

But, surely the Special Review by the Office of the Auditor-General (not by Stooge 1 himself), which indicated serious concerns about acquisition irregularities and conflicts of interest must in itself have been sufficient to support a presidential proclamation for an existing SIU to initiate a formal investigation or to bring into effect a new SIU?