When Celia Bester in the late 1990s discovered a loan account in the books of her employer, Nkobi Holdings, for which she could find no proof, get no answers and find no explanation, she was baffled.

As she probed further into the financial affairs of her boss, Durban businessman Schabir Shaik, she found myriad payments to Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

When those payments were removed from the books of Nkobi by some fancy auditing footwork, she resigned in fury.

But her discovery would be what finally prompted the large-scale uncovering of what Justice Hilary Squires on Wednesday found was "convincing and overwhelming proof" of a generally corrupt relationship between Shaik and Zuma.

The disappearance of the loans from Nkobi's books eventually led to Shaik's being charged with, among other things, fraud.

Shaik blamed his accounting staff. His auditors blamed him.

"Both cannot be right - someone is lying," Judge Squires said.

And then came Bester.

Described by the judge as an "unusually capable and efficient employee" and a "highly principled woman", Bester gave evidence in Shaik's trial.

What she said would lead eventually to a ruling that the court preferred the state's case that Shaik had caused to be written off, among other things, money paid to Zuma during a particularly troublesome time, when Shaik "had to keep his funding of Zuma as close a secret as possible, (because) if it should leak out, the consequences would have been unpleasant".

"If Bester wore her heart on her sleeve, it was a conspicuously honest one," Judge Squires said.

He had "no qualms" in believing her before he believed Shaik.

After the write-off and Bester's resignation, payments to Zuma increased and there eventually had been hundreds of instances where money was paid by Shaik for or on behalf of the deputy president, including rent for three years in a luxury flat and a number of payments to the exclusive outfitters Casanova.

When Shaik was asked to explain, he tried to play down the amount paid, which the state said had added up to more than R1-million.

"We do not believe him," Judge Squires said.

Even if some of the instances might have been small matters, "it must have an effect where a premium is placed on honesty - like a criminal trial".

Shaik's evidence had the "hallmarks of an... invention... coupled with confused explanations... and contradictions in his own evidence... contradicting his own plea explanation and instructions to his counsel," Judge Squires said.

Where Bester had left off, the story had been taken up by one of Shaik's young assistants, Bianca Singh.

Singh was the woman who made the world aware of a crude remark, involving a reference to Vaseline, that Shaik had made and which Judge Squires summarised delicately as Shaik's feeling he was being exploited but at the same time got what he wanted.

Singh also overheard a phone conversation, while negotiations around the arms deal were under way, in which Shaik referred to his brother, Chippy. At the time Chippy was the defence department's chief of acquisitions.

She had overheard Shaik explaining that "Chippy was under pressure" and asking Zuma to "help them land the deal", Singh told the court.

"It shows Zuma was ready to help," Judge Squires found.

He said he was particularly impressed with Singh's evidence: "She was somewhat naive and unsophisticated, but intelligent and perceptive... we were particularly impressed with three aspects of her evidence."

Singh had given the court the impression that "she was reliving what happened... which we considered as a guarantee for her truthfulness".

Judge Squires also relied on the evidence of Themba Sono, who was a former business partner of Shaik and whom he described as a man of deep-seated values.

That Sono had eventually resigned "says much for his views of the situation in which he had found himself".

"We believe him," Judge Squires said.

It was Sono who introduced the court to what he said was one of Shaik's favourite phrases, "political connectivity".

He also said that Shaik, during difficult corporate times, had once said: "If Renong (a Malaysian construction company) wants to play hardball, we can play political ball."

In his evidence Shaik claimed that by "political connectivity" he had meant black economic empowerment (BEE). Sono and Bester had questioned Shaik's BEE credentials, however.

"If there were any signs of BEE at Nkobi it was hidden from those two," Judge Squires said.

Shaik's reference to BEE also failed to convince the judge in two other instances.

Judge Squires accepted as the truth the contents of an affidavit by Malaysian businessman David Wilson. In it Wilson described a meeting he had with Zuma and Shaik at which Zuma advised him to take on Nkobi as BEE partner in a proposed multi-billion-rand Point development here.

"Since he no longer worked for Renong, Wilson would have had no motive to lie - nor can we think of any," the judge said.

He cited the debacle around a proposal to found an eco-tourism school in KwaZulu-Natal as an example of Zuma's helping to promote Shaik's business interests. Judge Squires described what he said was a scheme to get Nkobi in on the deal and said "Zuma added his signature" to it.

"To complete the charade, it was faxed from Nkobi's offices," he said.

"Shaik's claim that he was used to obtaining Zuma's signature was simply not credible."

After citing several more examples of Shaik's willingness to ask Zuma for help and Zuma's readiness to give it, Judge Squires paid compliments to the man who had finally drawn all the strands together.

Johan van der Walt, the KPMG forensic auditor who gave key evidence, had been "plainly impartial" and could describe "chapter and verse in extraordinary detail", the judge said. "We dismiss claims that he was biased as entirely without merit."

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Times.