Durban: Two difficult - but absent - French businessmen were the focus of the last day of oral evidence for the state in the trial of businessman Schabir Shaik.

Shaik has pleaded not guilty to two counts of corruption and one of fraud.

It is the second count of corruption that involves the French as it focuses on an alleged agreement by French arms company Thomson-CSF's to pay Deputy President Jacob Zuma for his "protection" during investigations into the arms deal.

Senior special investigator Johan du Plooy explained to the court that it was difficult to get answers out of the French.

Pierre Moynot, who was present at the first day of the trial but missing from court yesterday, is named in the state's prospective list of witnesses.

He was refusing to talk to the state and the prosecution had decided not to call him, Du Plooy told the high court here.

The other Frenchman, Alain Thetard, is one of three people alleged to have been involved in an agreement with Shaik for Zuma to be paid R1 million.

Du Plooy told the court he obtained two warrants for Thetard's arrest after the Scorpions had concluded that the Frenchman, director of Thomson-CSF in South Africa, should be charged with corruption and perjury.

These warrants were withdrawn after negotiations. He understood that the condition for their withdrawal was that Thetard had to admit that he had written the controversial memo setting out the terms of the agreement, Du Plooy said.

Francois van Zyl, for Shaik, read to the court yesterday an affidavit by Thetard in which he confirmed he had written the memo, but disagreed with the state's interpretation that it was the draft for an encrypted fax.

"(It was) merely a rough draft of a document in which I intended to record my thoughts on separate issues in a manner which was not only disjointed but also lacked circumspection."

Thetard also said Shaik had "at no stage" asked that a bribe be paid to the deputy president.

He had not sent the memo anywhere, nor had he directed that it be faxed.

"I crumpled it and threw it into the wastepaper basket from where it was possibly retrieved and provided to the state," Thetard said in the affivadit.

His secretary, Sue Delique, has told the court Thetard asked her to type the memo and fax it. The memo refers to "SS" and "JZ" and two payments of R500 000.

Du Plooy said the Scorpions's attempts to arrange for a French judge to question Thetard had yet to gain a response from the French authorities.

The hearing has been adjourned until tomorrow, when the court is to begin hearing argument about the admissibility of a number of disputed documents, most notably Thetard's handwritten note.

The state wants this memo, among others, to be accepted as evidence. But because the man who wrote it has not appeared before the court, in the dock or as a witness, it is technically hearsay evidence.

For the court to give it due consideration, the state would have to prove that it meets the criteria for one of the exceptions that could be allowed.

The prosecution and defence are to use their day off from court today to consider their positions and draw up their final heads of argument.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Times.