Jacob Zuma’s co-accused, French arms dealer Thint, is set to subpoena National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli to testify during the corruption trial.

In an affidavit submitted to the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday to oppose a prosecution application for an adjournment, Thint director Pierre Moynot gave notice that his defence team would require Pikoli to “testify and subject himself to cross-examination”.

Moynot is managing director of Thint Holdings (Southern Africa) and a director of Thint. The companies are accused of conspiring to pay Zuma a R1-million bribe in return for protection during investigations into the arms deal.

Like Zuma, Moynot accuses the prosecution of dirty tricks. In his affidavit, Moynot says that the state’s decision to re-open charges against Thint after withdrawing them in 2004 because it had struck a deal with then South African director Alain Thetard, was an act of bad faith.

He says the state had secured a warrant for Thetard’s arrest in February 2005 after it had discovered that he might be called as a defence witness in Schabir Shaik’s corruption trial.

“It is clear that if Thetard ... had been called by Shaik’s counsel to testify for the defence, he would have been promptly arrested, without prior warning, the moment he stepped off the aeroplane upon his arrival in Johannesburg [from France],” he says.

Thetard, says Moynot, has “lost complete faith and trust in the South African prosecuting authorities. He believes that the re-issue of the warrant of arrest was a contrived effort to prevent him from being a useful witness for the defence ... if he was called as a witness, he would have been testifying in prison clothes.”

Thetard, who Moynot describes as “the only witness who can testify regarding the circumstances regarding the handwritten encrypted fax”, had told him he would “never testify in connection with this case”.

Other Thint employees, Moynot said, felt the same and “are unwilling to testify in South Africa through fear of arrest”.

Pikoli, Moynot said, would be called to testify about why he decided to reopen charges against Thint.

Pikoli would also be asked to explain why he had instituted the prosecution at a time when it was clear that investigations still needed to be conducted. Pikoli would have to explain when he really expected the prosecution to commence .

With acknowledgement to Paddy Harper and Sunday Times.