Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2006-11-05 Reporter: Paddy Harper Reporter:

State can Challenge Illegal Zuma Raids 

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2006-11-05

Reporter

 Paddy Harper

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

The prosecution’s bid to get ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma back in court on corruption charges received a boost on Friday when the state was granted leave to appeal against a judgment declaring the raids on his home last August illegal.

The development comes on the eve of judgment in the Supreme Court of Appeal bid by his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, to have his corruption and fraud convictions set aside.

Judge Craig Howie will deliver the judgment tomorrow. Should Shaik’s appeal against either of the two corruption convictions fail, the state’s bid to reopen the corruption charges against Zuma will be made far stronger.

But if it succeeds, the state’s battle will be made all the more difficult and the prosecution will have to rely more heavily on the contested evidence seized in the August raids on Zuma’s home, his attorneys’ offices and the offices of Thint.

During the appeal argument, the five judges appeared to accept the decision of Durban High Court Judge Hilary Squires that Shaik and Zuma had conducted a “generally corrupt relationship” based on a series of payments by Shaik and a series of interventions by Zuma on his behalf in business deals. They also seemed unmoved by Shaik’s argument that his accountants, and not him, had been responsible for the write-off of R1.3-million to Zuma as “development costs”. Shaik was convicted of fraud and given three years in jail on this count.

On the second corruption conviction, relating to the infamous encrypted fax allegedly soliciting a bribe from Thint for Zuma, the judges questioned the admissibility of the fax with some vigour. They also seemed, in part, to entertain Shaik’s alternative argument that he might have tried to con Thint by using Zuma’s name without his knowledge.

Thus far, branches of the High Court have declared the raids on Zuma’s home and those of his attorneys, Michael Hulley and Juleika Mohamed, illegal.

But the state now has leave to appeal against the decision on the warrants authorising the Mohamed raid as well as the Hulley and Zuma raids.

With acknowledgements to Paddy Harper and Sunday Times.