I understand Mugabe's opinion of media, says corruption triallist

Schabir Shaik has threatened to sue Weekend Witness and the Sunday Times for reports at the weekend that he might concede he lied in order to get Deputy President Jacob Zuma off the hook over an alleged bribe solicited from French arms maker Thomson-CSF.

The continuation of the defence's final arguments at the Durban High Court on Wednesday was largely overshadowed by Shaik's disapproval of the media reports.

Before defence advocate Francois van Zyl continued with his argument, he complained that the media reported on a section of his heads of argument that he had not yet dealt with in court.

Van Zyl said he did not know how the journalists obtained his heads of argument, but said the media violated an "understanding" that there would be no reports on arguments before they were presented in court.

Judge Hillary Squires said he had not read the reports. He told the defence the decision to take the matter further is in their hands.

Outside court Shaik told journalists he is considering suing Weekend Witness and the Sunday Times as he feels the reports infringed his right to a fair trial. "I am taking that into serious consideration as someone needs to stand up. As I said, the media is the fourth force. They are a law [unto] themselves," he said.

He added he understands why Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has taken such a negative view of the media, because "enough is enough".

Asked if he supports media oppression, Shaik replied that as long as journalists continue to write "rubbish all the time" he would be the first in line to vote for such a law.

Meanwhile inside court, the defence has concluded its arguments on the three charges against Shaik.

Van Zyl said the notorious encrypted fax, which the state hopes will prove Shaik solicited an annual R500 000 bribe from French arms manufacturing company Thomson-CSF to Deputy President Jacob Zuma for protection against a probe into the arms deal, was not credible as its author, Thomson's South African operations boss Alain Thetard was not credible.

"Thetard did not give evidence and his credibility could not be tested in cross-examination, especially with regard to the events at the meeting on March 10, 2000. There are, however, a number of strong indicators on record to warrant the conclusion that one should be extremely careful to simply accept everything Thetard says or writes," he said.

Van Zyl gave examples from the testimonies of state witnesses of Thetard's dishonesty.

He said Thetard was probably afraid to testify because what he had written in the fax was most likely untrue *1.

Van Zyl argued there is a possibility that Thetard could have made up a bribe request to his French bosses in an attempt to pocket the money himself.

Earlier, Van Zyl reinterated that Shaik should not be held responsible for the R1,2 million irregular write-off in his Nkobi Holdings accounting records, as he was not aware of it.

According to the defence, Shaik, despite being responsible for signing the annual financial statements, left the accounting matters to his accountants, auditors and financial director.

The R1,2 million, which included Zuma payments, was irregularly written off in the Shaik's Nkobi accounting records under the description of development costs of Prodiba. The amount was written off against a non-distributable reserve that was simultaneously created against a loan account of Kobi-IT. The write-off was misrepresented in Nkobi accounting records and did not conform with general accounting practices.

Van Zyl is expected to conclude his final arguments today.

With ackowledgements to Nivashni Nair and The Natal Witness.-

*1 What utter nonsense. Thetard was afraid of he being charged for bribery, corruption and statutory perjury and spending the next 15 years in C-Max in the close company of some Boeremag beauties and a few other luminaries.