Tomorrow, although it is a public holiday, a full bench of the supreme court of appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein intends to start hearing the five-day appeal of Schabir Shaik and 11 of his companies against their conviction and sentence.

On October 11 2004, in what became, along with Jacob Zuma's rape trial, the most talked about and influential trial in modern South African history, Shaik and his companies (all represented by him) appeared in the Durban high court charged on three counts of corruption and fraud.

On June 2 2005, Shaik, a Durban entrepreneur and former financial "adviser" to Zuma, then the deputy president, was found guilty on all three counts by Judge Hilary Squires and two assessors. On June 8, Shaik, who comes from a prominent family of ANC activists, was sentenced to a total of 15 years in jail.

On July 26 2005, Squires refused Shaik leave to appeal on the main count of corruption. But this ruling was overturned by the SCA on November 15 2005 and, after one postponement due to the ill health of Judge Lex Mpati, vice-president of the SCA, Shaik's appeal date was set down for tomorrow.

As a result of Squires' finding that a "generally corrupt relationship" had existed between Shaik and Zuma, President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma from the deputy presidency on June 14 2005. Zuma was then charged with corruption and fraud on June 20 2005. Charged alongside Zuma, though later in the year, was Thint, the local arm of French arms manufacturer, Thales.

Thint was originally charged alongside Shaik in 2004. But charges were dropped against it following an agreement made by Thint and Penuell Maduna, then the minister of justice, and Bulelani Ngcuka, then the national director of public prosecutions (NDPP).

This week, in the Pietermaritzburg high court, the charges against Zuma and Thint were struck off the roll by Judge Herbert Msimang. He did this after refusing a state application for a postponement of the Zuma/Thint trial until 2007. The state then indicated that it was not ready to continue - and Msimang struck the charges from the roll. They can, however, be reinstated by Vusi Pikoli, the NDPP.

During argument for the postponement, both on July 31 this year and again on September 4-6, the state told Msimang that one of the reasons it required a postponement of the Zuma/Thint trial was that Billy Downer, SC, and Anton Steynberg, the leading members of the prosecution team in the Shaik trial, and set to be the lead prosecutors in the Zuma/Thint trial, were "seized" with preparations for the Shaik appeal.

More importantly, Downer told the court, a number of important legal issues likely to influence the Zuma/Thint trial would probably be discussed and ruled on by the SCA during the Shaik appeal. Significantly, Downer was not present on Wednesday for Msimang's striking off the roll of the Zuma/Thint case; he was busy preparing for the Shaik appeal.

The Shaik trial involved thousands of pages of documentary evidence, including the now famous KPMG forensic auditor's report. For tomorrow's appeal, the state's "heads of argument" alone are 241 pages, and there are another three volumes of timelines, annexures and appendices.

Shaik's 159 pages of heads of argument have been compiled by Francois van Zyl, SC, who defended Shaik in Durban, but he has been joined - and the appeal application is being spearheaded - by Jeremy Gauntlett, SC.

The issues that will be argued cover the full gamut of evidence led at Shaik's trial, with the main emphasis being on the state's argument that Shaik "bought" Zuma's influence and power to help him (Shaik) in a number of business ventures.

The most notable of these "corrupt acts" - so the state argued during Shaik's trial - was that Shaik had, with Zuma's knowledge, solicited a R250 000 a year bribe for Zuma from Thint (then known as Thomson-CSF Africa), in exchange for Zuma agreeing to protect Thint from the state's investigation into the arms deal.

The "proof" of this solicitation - the state argued and Squires also accepted - was to be found in the notorious "encrypted fax" sent by then Thint chief executive Alain Thetard to his superiors.

But Gauntlett and Van Zyl will argue that the "encrypted fax" was legally inadmissible. And, if the fax is found by the SCA to be admissible, they argue that it was anyway "nothing more than a report" on a meeting, not bribe notes.

Shaik's legal team will also argue that it was unlikely that Zuma would have publicly supported an investigation into the arms deal, as he did after political and media commentators had expressed concern over alleged corruption in the deal, if he had been "bought" by Shaik not to do so.

Referring to the numerous payments Shaik made to Zuma, most of which Shaik admitted to making, Gauntlett and Van Zyl argue in their papers that Squires "erred" in not accepting that the payments - estimated by Shaik to be worth about R880 000 - were loans and gifts made out of friendship.

The relationship between Shaik and Zuma was "special", not corrupt.

"The court erred in rejecting Shaik's evidence that the payments were made to assist Zuma financially, as a result of a deep-rooted friendship between them, after Zuma had confided in him that he was in dire financial straits and had considered leaving politics."

With acknowledgement to Jeremy Gordin and Sunday Independent.