Businessman Schabir Shaik has told the high court here that an employee of French arms company Thomson-CSF, now known as Thint, is to testify in his defence.

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

Several French employees of Thomson-CSF have been named during the trial.

They are: Alain Thetard, then-South African director and writer of the encrypted fax allegedly setting out a bribe agreement between Thomson-CSF and Zuma; Thetard's successor, Pierre Moynot, who had several discussions with Shaik; Jean-Paul Perrier, a senior member of Thomson-CSF in France and alleged to have given the go-ahead for the bribe to be paid; and Yann de Jomaronn (sic - Jomaron), the Mauritian-based head of Thomson's South African operations, who is alleged to have been present at a "damage-control" meeting with Shaik in November 2000.*1

Thetard left the country after the Scorpions began their investigation and refuses to come back.

Lead prosecutor Billy Downer, SC, had to take Shaik through a great number of documents yesterday and came under fire for this from Justice Hilary Squires.

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

Shaik told Downer about the French witness after being questioned about a service provider agreement between Nkobi and Thomson-CSF.

The state alleges the agreement was to facilitate payment of the bribe. During his questions yesterday Downer said it was "a sham".

"I don't believe the French would forge a service provider agreement for the payment of R250 000," Shaik answered.

He told the court it had been a clear "error" when he testified he had discussed the encrypted fax with Thetard and De Jomaronn at the "damage-control" meeting in November 2000. Looming investigations into South Africa's arms deal were among the topics discussed at the meeting.

Shaik said he had been "working on the assumption that the fax was in the public domain".

He emphasised that he had first learned of it from newspaper reports years later.

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

Downer, however, pointed out that this had happened while the threat of a large-scale investigation into the arms deal - including a probe by the Heath Unit, which could have had the deal cancelled - was at its greatest.

He is expected to argue that the "damage-control" meeting would have been the logical place to discuss the fax *3.

Referring to his other evidence about what happened at the meeting, Shaik denied saying: "If a certain ANC member opens his mouth we will be in trouble." *4

He added: "I did not even know what went into the defence contract. What did I have to fear? *4"

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Times.

*1 plus a very important one, Bernard de Bollabierre (sp?) who not only had the meeting with Chippy Shaik, but also the December 1998 meeting with none other than the Chairman of the Ministers Committee, Deputy President Thado Mbeki.

*2 Cross-examining any of these French persons should be like falling off a log - all of them are personally involved in not only this specific bribe conspiracy, but a couple of others besides.

*3 Which is what the man originally said - only to realise later that it contradicted other parts of his evidence.

*4 This could well have been her mouth - in which case could this be Barbara Masekela, Nelson Mandela's ex personal assistant, South African Ambassador to France until July 1999 (the Arms Deal Years) and participant in the secret meeting in Paris between senior executives of Thomson-CSF and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in December 1998?

*5 Losing the R2,6 billion [1998 Rands] corvette combat suite contract (Thomson and ADS share - R1,3 billion [1998 Rands]) - 'tis worth a couple of trips to Mauritius Paris, as well as a couple of backdates of a few documents - let alone a false loan agreement or two.