French arms firm offered to help Scorpions investigation

French arms company Thomson offered to help the Scorpions wrap up the bribery investigation against Durban businessman Schabir Shaik and Deputy President Jacob Zuma to "facilitate" the expansion of their business interests in South Africa.

This was the evidence by former state advocate Gerda Ferreira, a leading figure in the arms-deal investigation, in the Durban High Court yesterday.

She was one of the final state witnesses in the corruption and fraud trial of Shaik, who has pleaded not guilty.

Lead prosecutor in the case, Billy Downer SC, told the court that the state believed the help offered by Thomson was false.

At the time of the offer, there were two arrest warrants out for Alain Thetard, former CEO of the company in South Africa, - one for lying under oath and one for bribery. He was, however, not in the country.

Ferreira, who left the National Prosecuting Authority in 2003, gave evidence on the first day of the trial after a six-week break.

She explained how her time as arms deal investigator was filled with secret meetings in coffee shops, working late at night to coax affidavits from a scared witness and receiving faxes offering unexpected help.

The mission was to obtain one document: a handwritten note setting out conditions of a R1-million bribe agreed on by Thetard, Shaik and Zuma.

Ferreira said she made contact with Thetard's former secretary, Sue Delique, after she had spoken to two auditors from Arthur Andersen whom Delique had taken into her confidence about the note.

"She slammed the phone down while I was talking to her. Later she phoned me back. She said she might still have it (the note)."

"She promised to look for it, but wanted an undertaking that she would not be asked to testify. I tried to convince her to show me the document. When she agreed, I was on my way to Cape Town," said Ferreira.

"After I returned, she said she had lost the document. She said she had forgotten the briefcase in a supermarket and it was either lost or stolen."

"Eventually she agreed to meet me. She insisted we meet at a coffee shop. She told me the document had been stolen."

"I convinced Delique to try to help explain the structure of Thomson to us. She then re-discovered the handwritten note from which she typed the fax."

"She made an affidavit. She insisted that it be done after hours. She said she was scared. She asked us to stop the investigation."

Ferreira said no copies of the fax showed up during search-and-seizure operations in France, Mauritius or SA.

She also detailed to the court some of their efforts to get Thetard to co-operate. But he refused to give evidence or to come to South Africa.

Then, "out of the blue", she received a fax containing an explanation of what had happened at the meeting between Shaik, Zuma and Thetard on March 11 2003.

Downer told the court they were leading evidence on the explanation only to support their case that Thetard was lying about the meeting.

"We do not tender this document as the truth. In fact we do so as the complete opposite. It is our case that Thetard was lying and that what he said is at odds with the version put forward by Shaik."

Thetard had said he had met with Zuma at his official residence. However, he "had not received any request emanating from highly placed state personalities" but had received requests from Shaik to finance the development of his firms.

"I could have wondered about the real causes regarding such demands, taking into account the local context."

Thetard had said those requests "could only be justified by company management".

He also had confirmed the answers given *1 when the Scorpions first questioned him.

KPMG forensic auditor Johan van der Walt was recalled to the stand mainly to clear up questions left hanging last year about the amount of interest Zuma agreed to pay in terms of a revolving credit agreement.

He said the "most conservative figure due to Shaik at November 2004 was R2,2-million".

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.

*1 This is the perjury.

Note

Thetard interview under oath with the NPA was done in mid-June 2001, two and a half months before the Public Protector's Hearings into the Arms Deal were complete and fully five months before the Three Stooges issued their Joint Report to Parliament. The raids on the Thomson offices were carried out on 9 October 2001.

Just where oh where is there just a squeak of a mention of the doings and ewings of Thetard, Thomson-CSF et Cie in the Joint Report - no details, no pack drill, just a little mention that some deadly serious escargot had been uncovered and were the subject of a fully fledged formal (as promulgated by the Investigating Director) investigation by the NPA.

Instead I was hung out to dry on those few fateful days at the Public Protector's Hearings in late August 2001 with all kinds of attack most unsavory by the DoD, Armscor, ADS/Thomson-CSF, GFC, Chippy Shaikh and Llew Swan; some like that of the DoD and ADS by direct munitions and other being the indirect type mounted through their legal representatives under cover of qualified privilege.

But even the savory escargot must sometime come home to roost.