Publication: The Star
Issued:
Date: 2006-06-10
Reporter: Estelle Ellis
| Publication |
The Star
|
| Date |
2006-06-10 |
|
Reporter
|
Estelle Ellis
|
|
Web Link
|
www.thestar.co.za
|
Prosecutor
submit arguments against plea for appeal
'It was ongoing, systematic corruption …" In defence of this
five-word phrase, prosecutors in the trial of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik
filed hundreds of pages yesterday.
Their documents included a 241-page
explanation of why they believe it was an accurate description of the
relationship between former deputy president Jacob Zuma and Shaik.
Zuma
is still to go on trial for corruption, but in the case of Shaik, the state says
it has already proved corruption beyond a reasonable
doubt.
Last year Shaik was convicted by Judge Hilary Squires on
two charges of corruption and one of fraud. He was sentenced to an effective 15
years' imprisonment.
Shaik is appealing this verdict. An unprecedented five days has been set aside by the court to
hear the appeal in August *1.
In their heads
of argument, advocates Billy Downer and Anton Steynberg repeated Judge Squires'
words. "We have presented a compelling case of Shaik's guilt," they said, asking
the court to reject Shaik's appeal.
The following is what the state is
expected to argue before the Supreme Court of Appeal on each count:
Count 1
The state and Shaik have agreed that he made a series of
payments to Zuma between October 1995 and September 2002. Shaik claims they were
made for Zuma's benefit.
The state says they were made with the intent
to commit corruption.
"Shaik trumpeted his association with Zuma to the
business world at large. He considered political connectivity to be essential
for business success," the state said.
"It is submitted," it wrote,
"that … Shaik intended Zuma to perform his duties and exercise his powers as MEC
and deputy president of the country, as appropriate, in favour of Shaik and
Nkobi Holdings as part of his powers of influence."
The state is set to
argue that Zuma had intervened "on various occasions" to the business advantage
of Shaik and the Nkobi group of companies.
Count 2
Shaik was
found guilty of fraud after being party to the deliberate falsification of the
Nkobi accounting records. Shaik agreed that the records were falsified. The only
question the court had to decide was whether Shaik knew about it.
The
state has indicated it will argue that all the evidence pointed to the fact that
he did.
Count 3
Judge Squires found that Shaik conspired with the French Thomson-CSF group and Zuma to
facilitate the payment of a bribe to the former deputy president.
In their heads of argument, Downer and Steynberg say: "The state submits
that such synopsis, corroborated by a contemporaneous minute of the proceedings
at the meeting during which the bribe agreement was concluded, is compelling.
"Shaik's innocent explanation for the
admitted meeting and the admitted request for money, namely that this was an
innocent request for a donation to the Jacob Zuma Educational Trust, was rightly rejected by the trial court."
They also
asked the court not to interfere with Shaik's 15-year sentence.
"It is
clear from the correspondence that he pursued the scheme with vigour … He
assisted Zuma at every turn of the scheme."
With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.
*1 21 to 25 August 2006