Pierre Moynot, managing director of Thint, the local arm of giant French weapons manufacturer Thales, has made a number of startling allegations in an affidavit submitted to the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

These included the allegations that former minister of justice Penuell Maduna, despite putting in an affidavit critical of Thint's bona fides last Tuesday, took a job for the French company in September last year; and that Thales/Thint never approached the National Prosecuting Authority to try to cut a deal before the Schabir Shaik trial. Rather, it was the NPA that had approached Thales/Thint via Tony Georgiades, the former husband of F W de Klerk's wife, Elita.

These explosive allegations are contained in the replying affidavits put in to the Pietermaritzburg High Court yesterday by Thint in response to the affidavits put in by the state last Tuesday - in support of its application for an adjournment of the trial of Jacob Zuma and Thint on charges of corruption and fraud.

Moynot said that after the search of Thint's premises and Moynot's home on August 18 last year, Moynot asked Ajay Sooklal, his attorney, to approach Maduna to contact Vusi Pikoli, the new national director of public prosecutions (NDPP), to find out what was going on, as it had been Maduna who had, in April 2004, recommended to Ngcuka that charges against Thint be withdrawn.

In August last year, Maduna, an attorney at the Joburg law firm Bowman Gilfillan, agreed to meet Jean-Paul Perrier, the chief executive of Thales, in London to discuss the matter.

Maduna, who asked if he could bring his wife with him, on September 11 last year met Perrier, Sooklal and Moynot at the Radisson Hampshire Hotel in London.

At the meeting, Moynot alleged, Maduna confirmed remembering the discussions of 2004. Maduna also allegedly said he was surprised to learn about the search warrants of last year and said he would discuss the agreement of 2004 with Pikoli.

He also expressed an interest in purchasing shares in a company called ADS - shares of which Shaik was divesting himself through a curator.

Maduna requested that he be paid for his professional services - for which, Moynot said, he had paid him. Thint also bore Maduna's travel expenses to London, said Moynot.

"In the light of what is stated above," said Moynot, "I have great difficulty in understanding the attitude of Maduna" towards especially Thint, but also Zuma.

"Given that Maduna had acted for Thint last year, how could he have stated - as he did in his affidavit on Tuesday - that he had been suspicious of Thint and its legal representatives as early as May 2004?" Moynot asked.

Moynot said Thales/Thint had not first approached Maduna, then minister of justice, and Ngcuka, then NDPP, regarding the NPA's investigation of Shaik, but that, on the contrary, Thales had been approached by an NPA intermediary.

Moynot said that several months prior to Shaik's trial, Perrier had been approached in Paris by Georgiades, who had asked Perrier whether they could meet at the Bristol Hotel.

Georgiades introduced himself as a good friend of both Maduna and Ngcuka and asked whether Perrier would agree to meet Ngcuka in connection with the NPA investigations.

When Perrier expressed misgivings about Georgiades' claim of a connection with Ngcuka and Maduna, Georgiades called Ngcuka on his cellphone and passed it to Perrier to talk.

Ngcuka confirmed that Georgiades was his emissary and said he wanted to meet Perrier to ask about the "relationship between Thales International and Shaik" and that, in his view, Thales/Thint was "not implicated" in the case under investigation. Perrier then met Ngcuka, both of them accompanied by other people.

Moynot said he could not understand why Maduna and Ngcuka had not mentioned Georgiades in their papers earlier this month - "(other than) there may well be some embarrassment that might be caused by their association with Georgiades".

Moynot also said it was "somewhat quaint" for Ngcuka to now say in his affidavit that if he had known what the affidavit of Thint chief executive Alain Thetard was going to say about the encrypted fax, he would not have withdrawn the charges against Thint in the Shaik trial. The fact was, said Moynot, that Ngcuka had withdrawn the charges.

Regarding the allegations made by both Maduna and Scorpions chief Leonard McCarthy in their affidavits that they had confidential discussions prior to the Shaik trial with Thint's present counsel, Kessie Naidu SC, and that, if pushed, they would reveal what they had talked to Naidu about, Moynot said: "McCarthy's version is a contrived effort to cast aspersions on Naidu and, as such, is a deliberate and malicious attempt to try to create a conflict between Naidu and those he represented and still represents."

Moynot said Naidu had never said anything not known about Thetard to anyone else.

Moynot added that the remarks were scandalous, vexatious and irrelevant, and an application would be made to have such remarks struck from the record.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and The Star.