It is back to court this week for Durban businessman Schabir Shaik as he fights on for his freedom.

Last month, Shaik was convicted of corruption and fraud and sentenced to an effective 15 year jail term by Judge Hilary Squires.

In bringing out the first conviction of corruption, the court found that Shaik had cultivated and sustained a generally corrupt patronage with Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president. Both he and nine of the companies that made payments to Zuma were convicted of this crime.

On the fraud charge, the court found that Shaik had caused money to be written off in the books of some of his companies and as a result created a false impression of the money he had paid to, among others, Zuma. Shaik and four of his companies were convicted of fraud.

On the third charge of corruption, the court found that Shaik had facilitated a bribe agreement between French arms company Thomson and Zuma.

According to the agreement, Thomson was to pay Zuma R500 000 a year until the first payments of dividends from African Defence Systems.

Two of Shaik's companies, Kobifin and Kobitech, were found guilty of money laundering after the court ruled that they were party to a service provider agreement used to hide the payment of the bribe money.

It is against this judgment that Shaik was expected to apply for leave to appeal on Tuesday.

To be successful Shaik's legal team will have to convince Judge Squires that another court may come to different conclusions than the ones Squires drew from the evidence before him and his two assessors.

It is expected that part of Shaik's application would focus on Judge Squires's ruling about an encrypted fax, ostensibly setting out the bribe agreement between Shaik, French arms company Thomson and Zuma.

Shaik's legal team had objected, on procedural grounds, to the fax being used in evidence against Shaik, stating that it constituted hearsay as the author of the fax, Alain Thetard, a Thomson executive, was not before court.

The Scorpions are looking for Thetard but, up to now, have not been able to find him.

Judge Squires ruled that the fax was admissible under one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule.

The prosecution has made no secret of the fact that getting the fax into evidence was a crucially important victory in their case. Which means that Shaik's legal team would be focusing a lot of energy on getting a chance to have this ruling overturned.

Apart from their proposed attack on the fax, it is also expected that Francois van Zyl SC, Shaik's lead counsel, will argue that another court may conclude that the state had simply not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

On the other hand, Billy Downer SC, the lead counsel for the state, will have to convince Squires that no other court will find room to disagree with him. Downer, who had to fight many an uphill battle during the trial, is likely also to focus on the admissibility of the fax in his argument.

Should Shaik lose his application for leave to appeal he can approach Justice John Howie, the president of the supreme court of appeal, who can also give him permission to appeal.

But if that fails - and in the absence of any constitutional issues argued up to now - it would be the end of the road for Shaik, who would then have to start serving his sentence.

In November, the Asset Forfeiture Unit is expected to apply for R30-million of Shaik's assets to be forfeited to the state as proceeds of crime.

In June, Shaik agreed to give the state temporary control of R30-million of his assets pending tomorrow's court action.

The assets included in the agreement were:

His indirect shareholding in African Defence Systems (ADS), which is worth R22-million;

Cash to the amount of R250 000 which was, according to the judgment, paid by Thomson as part of a bribe agreement with Zuma, brokered by Shaik; and

Assets of R7-million that were restrained under the country's assets forfeiture legislation - which meant that Shaik was barred from dealing with these assets. Shaik, however, has always disputed that the state had a right to confiscate his assets - and especially the indirect shareholding in ADS - as the proceeds of a crime.

But on Monday, the Asset Forfeiture Unit is expected to argue that it can prove - on a balance of probabilities - that the R30-million was the proceeds of a corrupt relationship between Shaik and Zuma.

It has been the state's contention that Shaik's Nkobi group of companies was only given indirect shareholding in ADS after Zuma had intervened on his behalf.

However, Judge Squires's finding in this respect was that it did not amount to corruption.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Sunday Independent.