Defence teams starts its case

It was with a question about his professional expertise that Durban businessman Schabir Shaik's legal team started their attack on forensic auditor Johan van der Walt's evidence in the High Court, Durban, today.

For the past eight days Van der Walt had described his findings, documented in an epic 250-page report, on Shaik's business dealings, the Nkobi group of companies and Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

Advocate Francois van Zyl SC today said that the defence consider a number of documents provisionally handed into court to be inadmissible.

He indicated however that the defence will cross-examine Van der Walt on these documents and argue about their admissibility later.

A nonchalant Van Zyl only paid attention to the pencil he was writing with while asking his first question of Van der Walt.

The question centred around Van der Walt's career and his experience as a forensic auditor.

"In your evidence you came to a conclusion on a number of factual issues, your conclusions are not on accounting issues alone," Van Zyl said.

"I explained when I commenced my evidence that I do not only look at debits and credits, but at all the underlying facts and assumptions," Van der Walt said.

Van Zyl then shifted his focus to the way in which the report was drawn up. After a number of questions, Van der Walt said that he had discussed technical issues of the report with KPMG technical advisers.

These issues specifically related to a charge that Shaik's companies had irregularly written off loans made, among others, to Zuma.

"I conclude that as a forensic accountant you lacked the expertise," Van Zyl said to Van der Walt.

"That is incorrect, I had discussions with the technical advisers to make sure of my conclusions. As a qualified chartered accountant I have the right to come to expert conclusions," Van der Walt said.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Daily News.