The prosecution in the Jacob Zuma trial this week - for the first time - released Zuma’s formal response to 35 questions related to his alleged corrupt activities.

The Sunday Times was the first to publish a list of 35 questions posed to Zuma by the Scorpions in 2003, but Zuma’s answers were never made public.

Zuma’s answers to the 35 questions are contained in an affidavit filed this week by Leonard McCarthy, the head of the elite investigative unit, in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, where Zuma is facing corruption charges.

McCarthy’s affidavit formed part of the prosecution’s response to an application by Zuma and French arms company Thint to have the case against them dismissed.

In his 34-page reply, Zuma said there was a “lack of merit in the allegations against him”.

The questions related to his relationship with his financial adviser, Durban businessman Schabir Shaik, and Shaik’s company, Nkobi Holdings.

Zuma is alleged to have tried to solicit a R500000-a-year bribe from a French arms company that benefited from the arms deal in exchange for protecting it during a subsequent investigation into aspects of the deal.

The Scorpions asked him to explain his knowledge of or involvement in a business relationship between Shaik and the Nkobi Group, on the one hand, and Jean-Paul Parrier, Alain Thetard and Pierre Moynot of Thomson-CSF, now Thint, the company that allegedly paid the bride, on the other.

Zuma said he had played no part in the arms procurement transaction “except to the extent of receiving, evaluating, and deliberating upon submissions to Cabinet made in this regard from time to time”.

“I have neither solicited nor taken any bribe,” he said. “I have committed no fraud and I have never used my public office to advance the private business interest of any person.”

Shaik has been convicted of having a “generally corrupt relationship” with Zuma.

Zuma said he did not understand why Thint would want to bribe him, as the French defence company had “nothing to fear from an investigation into the corvette contract”.

“Despite extensive investigation, no corruption relating to the conclusion of the corvette contract ... has been alleged or identified by any investigating authority,” he said.

Zuma said that the state’s argument amounted to what he termed a “consignment of pumpkins” versus one of apples.

“A consignment of pumpkins is criticised on the ground that the pumpkins delivered on day two are too large when compared with a consignment of apples delivered on day one. One should not try to compare apples with pumpkins. One should compare apples with apples,” Zuma said.

Zuma then proceeded to provide what he called an “analysis” of the facts on which the Scorpions had based its case against him.

He said there was no evidence that he had accepted a bribe at a meeting in Durban on March 11 2000.

He said the Scorpions did not have evidence that such a meeting had taken place, or that he had attended such a meeting.

He also challenged the now infamous encrypted fax that the prosecution is using to back up the bribe allegation against him.

The encrypted fax was sent by Thetard to his superiors in Paris. In it, Thetard appeared to confirm, in coded language, that Zuma had accepted the bribe in exchange for protecting Thint and for “future support”.

Zuma said: “The allegation is not that I solicited the bribe in any recognised language: It is that a code had been agreed between Shaik and Thetard (when, is not clear) which would be equivalent to my agreeing to accept a bribe and that I then, as it were, communicated to Thetard the previously agreed code.

“There is no evidence that I was party to any such agreed code or communicated the agreed code to Thetard or, indeed, what the alleged code was,” Zuma said.

He also challenged the timing of any such bribe. “The negotiations relative to the bribe are in effect said to have taken place after the bribe had been paid! Would a person paying a bribe first pay the bribe and then afterwards discuss the terms on which the bribe was being paid? Of course not.”

Zuma also took issue with what he called a lack of consistency in the Scorpions’ logic. “Why then, after the parties had gone to such lengths ... to disguise the transaction with me ... would they write unencrypted business letters after the investigation commenced and leave copies in their own files, to be discovered by the investigators?” Zuma asked.

He also said that “there is no suggestion that I actually performed any act which might conceivably have constituted ‘protection’ of or ‘assistance’ to [Thint],” he said.

Zuma is accused of writing a letter to Gavin Woods, then chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which stated that there was no need for the Heath Unit to investigate the arms deal.

Zuma said he stood accused of writing a letter, which, in fact, had been drafted by the President’s office and which he had merely signed.

With acknowledgements to Wisani wa ka Ngobeni, Paddy Harper and the Sunday Times.