or eight months, Shaik has been accompanied to court by his three high-profile brothers, Chippy, Mo and Yunus.

Two lesser-known siblings, brother Faizal, an IT company owner, and half-brother Selim, Shaik’s deputy at Nkobi Holdings, have also been present.

Chippy, the former head of arms procurement for the government, is the only one implicated in any wrongdoing.

Judge Hilary Squires said in his judgment that Chippy Shaik was “central to this whole exercise [of putting together the arms deal], managing and driving it and privy to every bid, reaction, debate and response”.

Judge Squires accepted evidence from Shaik’s former secretary, Bianca Singh, that Chippy had called Schabir in late 1998 to ask for Zuma’s assistance in resolving problems in “landing a deal”.

“The ensuing response and reaction of Shaik to this call indicated a perceived problem disclosed by his brother Chippy, who was always fully aware of ongoing developments in the several bids for aspects of the arms acquisition programme, and an immediate recourse to Zuma for his assistance to resolve the difficulty reported by Chippy Shaik,” Judge Squires said.

While it was not known what the difficulty was, for Chippy to have phoned Schabir “it must have been something that affected Shaik’s interest in a particular business enterprise”, he said.

“If it came from Chippy Shaik, it very probably had something to do with the Defence Acquisitions Programme and that Chippy was having difficulty in achieving some desired result on behalf of Shaik,” he said.

Judge Squires added that during the 2000 investigation into the arms deal by parliament's select committee on public accounts (Scopa), the issue of conflicts of interest in the Department of Defence around the arms deal had been raised.

“One such conflict was between Chippy Shaik and the accused’s business interests and ... there was evidence before the committee to suggest that Chippy Shaik’s reported recusal from discussion and decisions that affected the accused’s interests was fictitious and false.

“There was apparently evidence which claimed that he remained in and influenced the proceedings from which he purported to recuse himself.”

Mo Shaik, special adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has also taken flak over the case.

He has taken special leave to attend the trial and this week said he would be forced to take unpaid leave to attend next week’s proceedings.

Mo has repeatedly been quizzed about his conditions of employment at Foreign Affairs and the amount of time he has spent at the trial.

Yunus Shaik, a lawyer and former trade union adviser and provincial commissioner for the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, has also taken a knock.

He, too, has spent large amounts of time away from work and his law practice is battling.

It was Yunus who perhaps summed up the family’s position this week in his response to the judgment: “We’re gone ... they’re going to give us 15 years.”

Shaik not only faces possibly this long in jail, but the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) on Friday took control of R30-million of his assets.

In terms of an agreement brokered over three days, Shaik handed over R22-million in shares in African Defence Systems, the consortium which won the combat suite tender in the corvette deal.

He also surrendered to the AFU control of R250 000 in cash, the equivalent of the bribe paid to him by French arms dealer Thomson and R7-million in additional assets which will be “restrained” by the state, effectively stopping him from selling them.

The court will later decide whether these assets should be forfeited to the state as the proceeds of crime.

With acknowledgements to Paddy Harper and the Sunday Times.