To testify or not to testify - that is but one of several questions

If Deputy President Jacob Zuma's financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, is sent into the witness stand in the Durban High Court today, it will be his one and only chance to prove his innocence.

It will not be his counsel speaking on his behalf, as Francois van Zyl, SC, has done in the trial up to now.

In future appeals, if any, it will be the counsel doing the talking.

But today, if he takes the stand - and the law says that if he wishes to testify he needs to do so before any other witness does - it will be Shaik himself, squaring up to the man who has for the past year led the investigation of his activities.

On occasion those who had incurred the wrath of Billy Downer SC's cross-examination have said it was like subjecting a witness to Chinese water torture.

It is calm, collected, acerbic and incisive.

Downer, leading the prosecution, had provisionally closed the state's case on Thursday, indicating he might still want to lead evidence on the whereabouts of the original document formalising a revolving credit agreement between Shaik and Zuma.

The original document cannot be found at this stage, but lead investigator Johan du Plooy testified last week that his team were continuing their probe into the issue.

Last October Shaik pleaded not guilty to three charges.

These included two of corruption - relating to what the state alleged to be a mutually beneficial and criminal relationship between Shaik and Zuma, as well as an alleged conspiracy to bribe Zuma in return for his protection and support.

The fraud charge deals with more than R1-million that was irregularly written off in the books of companies in Shaik's Nkobi group.

Shaik has up to now proved himself to be a man of great resilience. But when he goes into the witness box the main question is whether his close friend Zuma will be called to back up his evidence.

Shaik said on Thursday they had not decided on it, but Van Zyl told the court he was in Cape Town for the weekend to consult a witness.

It was widely speculated that he was alluding to Zuma.

It remains an open question whether Zuma would agree to give evidence - and risk being confronted during cross-examination with his lavish spending, bad credit record and the infamous encrypted fax.

It is by now clear that the state is not going to call Zuma as a witness. If Shaik also does not, Zuma's only chance to give evidence would be if the court called him as a witness.

After suffering a few blows to the defence of the charges against him, it is now clear that Shaik will probably take the risk of giving evidence. As the Constitutional Court said in the case of Allan Boesak, before he was pardoned, an accused in a criminal case is faced with tough choices.

Shaik's expected evidence follows a difficult week for him and his legal team when the state managed to persuade the court to allow the encrypted fax into evidence.

It set out an alleged bribe agreement between Shaik, Zuma and a director of the French arms company Thomson.

In the same judgment, Judge Hilary Squires also allowed into evidence a statement by Malaysian businessman David Wilson, supporting the state's allegation that Zuma had helped to promote Shaik's business interests.

If there had been a scoreboard in court at this stage, it would read: State 1, Shaik 1. Each party has won a significant legal battle in the proceedings so far.

Shaik won the argument to keep his tax records out of court and the state won the battle of the fax and Wilson's statement.

Van Zyl, Shaik's counsel, told the court on Thursday he would be ready to start presenting the defence's case to the court today.

Some of the questions his client might face under cross-examination, should Shaik give evidence, include questions about:

• The encrypted fax and the opaquely worded correspondence following it, which Shaik claims related to a donation for the Jacob Zuma Education Trust. Downer earlier called this version of Shaik's "laughable";

• Observations from both Professor John Lennon, from Caledonian University in Scotland, and Malaysian businessman David Wilson that Zuma was actively promoting Shaik's business interests;

• The financial relationship between himself and Zuma and why it was continuing even though audit information shows that Shaik's Nkobi group of companies could ill afford to support the deputy president;

• Money paid to Zuma by Nelson Mandela. Forensic auditor Johan van der Walt said Shaik used the money to pay his companies' debt; and

• An order he gave to his auditors to write off more than R1-million he owed to his companies recorded on Nkobi's books.

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.