Amid the drama of Schabir Shaik taking the stand in his trial this week, the prosecution quietly cleared a significant hurdle - Shaik's legal team lost its opportunity to bring a discharge application.

Shaik had on occasion said the charges against him were "Mickey Mouse". But, in general, discharge applications are brought where an accused believes the state has produced nothing worthy of an answer while presenting its case.

The prevailing legal thinking seems to be that after Judge Hilary Squires ordered that an encrypted fax - ostensibly setting out a bribe agreement between Shaik, Jacob Zuma, the deputy president, and French arms company Thomson - be entered into evidence, Shaik had no choice but to testify.

First it would been "laughable", as one legal expert put it, to bring a discharge application. Second, as another put it, not giving evidence "would have been like handing a guilty plea to the court".

Giving answers this week was not easy for the suave Durban businessman. A row with Francois van Zyl, his counsel, seemed to distract him, and so did the state's legal team. Shaik claimed on several occasions that his "learned colleagues on the left" were disturbing him.

It seemed that Shaik took offence at whatever whispered discussions the state's legal team were having. Billy Downer, the team's head, did apologise, but Squires also explained to Shaik the prosecution's need to communicate.

By Wednesday, Shaik's sombre mood seemed to have lifted, and apart from complaints about not feeling well and being tired, he seemed much more focused. He left the witness stand warning: "Beware of the French".

He said he was going to write a book about this and then added: "I love their women, but I am very careful of the French."

In short, Shaik told the court this week that:

• He had a close friendship with Zuma.

• He assisted Zuma financially, but so did three other businesspeople.

• He did not expect Zuma to help him in return.

• Zuma wished to formalise their financial relationship, which led to a revolving credit agreement being drawn up.

• He did not know where the original of this document was. The last time that he noticed, Zuma had it.

• He was a good enough businessman not to have resorted to bribery to be successful.

• He had called for Zuma's help on several occasions, especially to sort out the black economic empowerment (BEE) share in African Defence Systems.

• Zuma managed to negotiate this deal in favour of Shaik's company, Nkobi Holdings. Shaik considered this to be a fair outcome as he believed allegations he was not a suitable BEE candidate were slanderous.

• He did not ask Zuma to help him obtain other contracts, such as the Point Development and an eco-tourism school in KwaZulu-Natal.

• He had nothing to do with the irregular write-off of money in his company's books. He tried to have it fixed when he discovered what had happened.

• Correspondence the state claims was about the bribe to be paid to Zuma was really about a donation to the Jacob Zuma Education Trust.

• Zuma and he are still trying to figure out why Alain Thetard, the French arms company director, would write that they had agreed to a bribe, when all they wanted was a donation for this trust.

• The service provider agreement that the state alleges was a means to facilitate the payment of the bribe, was actually a vehicle for him to generate money to pay back Development Africa. Schaik had inadvertently transferred money donated to Development Africa by former president Nelson Mandela and he had to find a way of paying it back.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Sunday Independent.