SA’s presidential succession race was thrown wide open yesterday after the Durban High Court handed down a damning guilty verdict to Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.

Judge Hillary Squires’ finding that Shaik was guilty on all charges ­ including the main charge of corruption involving Zuma ­ virtually torpedoed Zuma’s prospects of succeeding President Thabo Mbeki in 2009.

The finding also raised the question of whether Zuma himself would be charged, and set off clarion calls for him to step down.

Zuma last night told SABC TV news from Lusaka, Zambia, where he was on a visit: “There was an investigation done and it said there was no case, so I have not been in court. *1

“I will certainly be studying the judgment and I think that is what I can say,” Zuma said.

In its reaction, government said it respected the court’s findings, but recognised that “there may be a number of implications, for government, arising out of the judgment, (and) this is a matter that will require considered reflection by relevant legal and political authorities”.

After three days of judgment, Shaik’s arduous wait ended yesterday when Squires finally declared him guilty on all three of the main counts, two of corruption and one of fraud.

Although the final declaration had been widely anticipated in the packed courtroom, its repercussions outside the court room were more profoundly felt, with Zuma’s role quickly becoming the new front of political dispute.

While government spokesmen pleaded for time to consider the judgment, opposition parties quickly called for Zuma’s resignation; Zuma’s own supporters in the youth and trade union movements still insisted the judgment had nothing to do with Zuma.

Shaik himself was clearly stunned by the verdict. When he finally emerged from the court premises, he told the jostling crowds and press: “I walk in the light of my Lord. I am innocent. I will hold that view till the day that I meet Him ... don’t lose faith in our Lord, because I don’t.”

Despite Shaik’s continued protestations of innocence, Squires’ judgment was emphatic and devastating, at times dismissing with barely-contained contempt various arguments raised by the defence as possible alternative explanations of Shaik’s and Zuma’s actions.

In response to Shaik’s explanation that the R500 000 annual amount being requested from French arms company Thomson-CSF (now Thales) was in fact for Zuma’s education trust, the judge ultimately concluded that this notion was “nothing short of ridiculous”. There was no evidence that the trust ever anticipated a donation, or that such a donation had been pursued by Zuma, as he had done on many occasions in the past.

“If he (Zuma) had genuinely believed Thomson-CSF was thinking of a donation, it’s incredible that he himself did not try to actively pursue the matter."

The evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the money sought from Thomson was intended for Zuma’s benefit, Squires said.

Squires also dismissed an intricate scenario sketched by Shaik’s defence team that the businessman might have deceived Zuma in a bid to pocket the money himself.

“If a prize were awarded for tenacious ingenuity, this argument would be a strong contender,” the judge said.

Squires was often as damning in his comments on the deputy president as he was about Shaik’s actions, highlighting an “overwhelming” case for a generally corrupt relationship between the two men, as well as apportioning Zuma and Shaik with equally shared responsibility for soliciting the annual bribe from Thomson-CSF.

Far from defending the idea of an investigation into the arms deal as was sometimes suggested, Squires said a far more reliable guide to Zuma’s views were set out in his letter in January 2001 to Inkatha Freedom Party MP Gavin Woods, then chairman of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa). In this letter, which Zuma signed and had made widely available, he informed Woods of a presidential decision not to issue the proclamation required for the investigation Woods sought into the arms deal.

The judge said Woods had described the letter as “unique in its hostility, sarcasm and untrue statements”.

“It is almost as if the writer is taking special delight in rubbing the collective nose of Scopa, and Woods in particular, in the rejection of the recommendation.

“This is not the attitude of someone who is supportive of the investigation being pursued by Scopa,” Squires said.

A hearing into sentencing will begin today, while state prosecutor Billy Downer informed Squires of a bid to seize Shaik’s assets by the Asset Forfeiture Unit, which is authorised to seize assets deemed to have been secured with the proceeds of crime.

Downer also handed in proof that Shaik, who faces the ordeal of hearing evidence in aggravation and mitigation of sentence was a first-time offender.

The businessman signed a R100 000 cheque as an extension of his bail application immediately following Squires’ conviction, and will surrender his passport by 10am today.

In a deviation from accepted court practice *2, Downer will open the arguments for sentencing by bringing a state witness to the stand this morning. Traditionally, the defence opens these arguments in mitigation of sentencing, including that Shaik has no previous convictions.

The case will then adjourn until Tuesday, when defence advocate Francois Van Zyl will introduce witnesses in mitigation of sentence.

With acknowledgements to Nicola Jenvey, Tim Cohen and the Business Day.

*1 This is not true. The investigation found that there was a prima facie case and recommended prosecution. The national director took advice from a nameless, faceless senior counsel and then, without explanation, concluded that the case might not be strong enough.

Post facto, this flies in the face that the learned judge and his two gentleman assessors found that there was overwhelming evidence to support the State's case that both parties, as well as Thomson-CSF, committed a criminal conspiracy to both initiate and fulfill a bribery agreement.

*2 This is just because the state witness is travelling abroad next week.