An employee of French arms company Thomson is to testify for Durban businessman Schabir Shaik.

The evidence of the Frenchman, whose identity Shaik refused to divulge yesterday, is expected to be about a payment of R250 000 by Thomson to Shaik's Nkobi group of companies.

The state alleges that this was the first payment of a R1-million bribe aimed at securing Deputy President Jacob Zuma's protection and support.

Several French employees from Thomson have been named during the trial:

Alain Thetard, writer of the controversial encrypted fax setting out the alleged bribe agreement between Thomson and Zuma. He left the country after the Scorpions started their investigation, and refuses to come back.

Pierre Moynot, South African director of Thomson and Thetard's predecessor. He had several discussions with Shaik.

Jean-Paul Perrier, a senior member of Thomson in France, alleged to have given the go-ahead for the bribe to be paid.

Yann de Jomaronn, Mauritian-based head of Thomson's SA operations, alleged to have been at a "damage control" meeting with Shaik in November 2000.

Lead prosecutor Billy Downer SC took Shaik through a great number of documents yesterday and came under fire from Judge Hilary Squires.

"You have been cross-examining for more than a week. Just hurry up. We don't have much time left," he said.

Shaik told Downer about the French witness after being questioned extensively on a service-provider agreement between Nkobi and Thomson. The state alleges that the agreement was a way to facilitate the payment of the bribe. Downer has called it a sham.

Shaik told the court it had been a clear error when he said he had discussed the encrypted fax, setting out the bribe agreement, with De Jomaronn and Thetard during a "damage control" meeting in 2000. Looming investigations into SA's multi-billion-rand arms deal were among the topics discussed.

Shaik told the court he'd been "working on the assumption that the fax was in the public domain". He stressed that he first became aware of the fax when he read about it in newspapers years later.

"The French kept the fact of the fax away from me," he said.

Shaik has denied that he had said at the meeting that if a certain ANC member opened his mouth "they would be in trouble".

He also told the court that Moynot "was prone to sniff around several political parties" and he had advised Moynot to stick to "what he knew best" after he discovered that the Frenchman had met Bheki Solomons, a controversial ANC intelligence officer, at ANC headquarters in Johannesburg. *1

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.

*1 This is almost surely the biggest nonsense.

Firstly, there is no such person as Bheki Solomons. There is a person called Hassan Solomons aka Bheki Jacobs. But not Bheki Solomons (except in the mind of Schabir Shaik as advised by Mo Shaik - both who worked for ANC Intelligence under The Commander and therefore should know better).

It is most unlikely that Bheki Jacobs even know what Pierre Moynot looks like, let alone has ever had a meeting with him (although he might be able to offer a reasonable guess as to some of his favorite foods).

If it moves, it can be eaten - if it doesn't move, kick it 'til it moves and then eat it.

Otherwise offer it 500 KF per year.