The prosecution will oppose a court bid by arms company Thint to be given immediate further information on the corruption charges it faces alongside former deputy president Jacob Zuma.

Thint and Thint Holdings, accused numbers two and three in the pending corruption trial, filed papers in the Durban High Court last Friday seeking to compel the prosecution to make available further particulars on the indictment.

The first accused, Zuma, was listed as an interested party in the Thint application.

The state had until May 4 to file replying affidavits, and the matter had been enrolled for hearing on May 12, prosecutor Billy Downer confirmed.

The prosecution contends it is unable to provide further particulars until it has finalised the indictment. This it could do only once litigation over the legality of search warrants used by investigators to obtain evidence in the case was finished.

To complete the final indictment, the prosecution needed to know what evidence it could rely on.

Provisional indictments have been served on Thint and Zuma ahead of the trial, due to get under way on July 31.

Asked whether the state would be ready to proceed on that day, Downer said: “It will all depend on what happens until then. The court will be asked to provide clarity on May 12 on whether we have to proceed”.

Zuma, presently being tried for rape, has been charged in line with having had a “generally corrupt” relationship with his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.

The two Thint companies are South African subsidiaries of French arms dealer Thales and stand accused of offering Zuma a R500000-a-year bribe in exchange for his silence during a probe into the country’s multi-billion-rand arms acquisition.

Thint director Pierre Moynot appeared as a witness in the Shaik trial and confirmed the high regard in which the French company held political connections.

In convicting Shaik last year, the Durban High Court found that the money had been a bribe. Shaik is taking the guilty verdict, which resulted in Zuma’s being fired by President Thabo Mbeki, on appeal.

Meanwhile, the two most senior judges in the Supreme Court of Appeal will reportedly form part of a full bench to hear Shaik’s appeal later this year. They are Judge Craig Howie, president of the court, and his deputy, Judge Lex Mpati. The other judges will be Piet Streicher, Mahomed Navsa and John Hefer.

With acknowledgement to Sapa and Business Day.