The long wait has ended. Judge Hillary Squires begins delivering his verdict on the fraud and corruption trial of local businessman Schabir Shaik in the Durban High Court this afternoon — bringing to a climax nearly eight months of political and legal drama.

Shaik, who was Deputy President Jacob Zuma's financial adviser, pleaded not guilty to two counts of corruption and one of fraud on October 11 last year.

The trial was heard in four sittings that stretched over 68 days.

It produced more than 10000 pages of court record and mountains of lever arch files filled with evidence submitted by both legal teams.

Court A became a stage for high-powered politicians such as the Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille and KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC Zweli Mkhize, secretaries Bianca Singh and Sue Delique, who testified against their bosses, forensic auditors Johan van der Walt and Greg Johnson and a host of other witnesses.

The opening day was played out before a capacity-packed courtroom of international and local journalists, Zuma and Shaik supporters and members of the public seeking entertainment.

When Squires announced that "like all rivers eventually reach the sea, we have reached the sea" before closing proceedings on May 4, attendance at the court had dwindled to a hardcore bunch who had attended the trial for seven months.

Essentially, the friendship between Shaik and Zuma was put on trial.

The state's main charge was corruption — that the business tycoon paid more than R1,2m to Zuma, or on Zuma's behalf, to secure lucrative arms contracts for his Nkobi Holdings business.

On its first count, the state alleged a "generally corrupt" relationship between the two men, and that Shaik paid Zuma's debts, rents and bond and car repayments — and clothed him in expensive suits from leading boutique Casanova.

In return for the financial assistance doled out for more than a decade, the state claimed Zuma punted Shaik's companies for black empowerment deals and investment opportunities when the deputy president was the KwaZulu-Natal economic affairs and tourism MEC.

Shaik argued while testifying in his defence that this friendship dated to the liberation struggle and Zuma's days in the African National Congress underground when he was working from Lusaka, Zambia.

On his return from exile, Zuma was broke and Shaik had assisted his friend with gradually bigger loans as Nkobi became increasingly profitable.

Shaik produced a copy of a R2m revolving loan agreement that Julie Mahomed, Zuma's legal adviser, testified the two men signed in May 1999. It was a legal guarantee against which Zuma would repay the loans.

Shaik also testified that he expected Zuma's pension to be a source of repayment.

Count two was a fraud charge in which the state alleged Shaik defrauded his Nkobi shareholders, directors, accountants and creditors by writing off R1,2m in loans to Zuma. An alternative charge alleged Shaik wrote off the money to avoid tax.

Van der Walt, a KPMG forensic auditor, provided the state's key evidence, testifying that Shaik created a nondistributable reserve within the Nkobi books as a means of hiding the write-off.

Greg Johnson, the defence specialist forensic witness, testified that the nondistributable reserve reflected the financial viability of Nkobi subsidiary KobiIT ahead of a proposal for multinational Symbol Technologies to acquire a stake in the company.

Shaik also countered during his testimony that he lacked a financial and legal education, and employed internal and external accountants to keep Nkobi's books.

He had signed his 1999 accounts — under dispute at the trial — in good faith that the transactions, including the write-off, were legally compliant.

On count three, the state charged that when the arms deal probe looked set to uncover irregularities, Shaik solicited a R500000 annual bribe from French arms company Thomson-CSF (now Thales) as protection from detection and prosecution.

Key to the state's evidence was the encrypted fax the state alleged Thomson-CSF Africa director Alain Thetard sent to his Paris bosses outlining the agreement.

In his summation, defence advocate Francois van Zyl argued that while the French company disliked making corporate donations, its executives considered bribery as part of its business conduct. Hence, the wording of the fax was simply a cover for a donation to the Jacob Zuma Education Trust, he claimed.

Today's proceedings see e.tv making South African legal history by broadcasting the judgment live from inside the courtroom and feeding coverage to other television stations.

Midi, the station's owners, halted the case twice with applications to televise the trial. On the second day of the trial, Squires ranked the rights of witness privacy and Shaik's right to a fair trial above those of the public's right to information.

Squires opens the proceedings after the traditional lunch adjournment today, and is expected to read his judgment until court ends at 4pm. He resumes tomorrow morning, with the final verdict expected by lunch-time.

With acknowledgements to Nicola Jenvey and the Business Day.