Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2006-08-23 Reporter: Jeremy Gordin Reporter:

SA Minister Acted for Us, says Thint Chief

 

Publication 

Independent Online

Date

2006-08-23

Reporter

Jeremy Gordin

Web Link

www.iol.co.za

 

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

These included:

• That former minister of justice Penuel 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, but that it was the NPA that had approached Thales/Thint via Tony Georgiades *1, the former husband of former South African president FW de Klerk's wife, Elita.

These explosive allegations are contained in the replying affidavits put into the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday 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 against 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 had asked his attorney, Ajay Sooklal, to approach Maduna to contact Vusi Pikoli, the new National Director of Public Prosecutions, to find out what was going on since it had been Maduna who had, in April 2004, recommended to Ngcuka that charges against Thint be withdrawn.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 Johannesburg 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 had confirmed remembering the discussions of 2004. Maduna also allegedly said that he had been surprised to learn about the search warrants of last year and said he would discuss the agreement of 2004 with Pikoli.

He had also expressed an interest in buying shares in a company called ADS - shares of which Shaik was divesting himself through a curator *2.

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, he said.

"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 that Thales/Thint had not first approached Maduna, then minister of justice, and Ngcuka, then national director of public prosecutions, regarding the NPA's investigation of Shaik, but that, on the contrary, Thales had been approached by an NPA intermediary. Moynot said that some months before Shaik's trial, Jean-Paul Perrier, the Chief Executive of Thales, 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's claim of a connection with Ngcuka and Maduna, Georgiades called Ngcuka on his cellphone and handed it to Perrier.

Ngcuka confirmed that Georgiades was his emissary and said he had 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 that 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 that it was "somewhat quaint" for Ngcuka to now say that if he had known what the affidavit of 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 had confidential discussions before 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 SC and, as such, is a deliberate and malicious attempt to try and 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.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and Independent Online.


*1 Finally the name of Tony Georgiades makes it into the public domain. He is long suspected of being the main interlocuter between the German Strategic Alliance, including the German Frigate Consortium and Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace, and the South African Government in the Arms Deal behind-the-scenes process.

He and the other main interlocuters, Jean-Yves Ollivier and Juergen Kogl, are probably responsible for most of the wonga splodging in the corvette and submarine deals.

Watch this space.


*2      This is diabolical.

Shaik is not simply divesting himself of the ADS shares, they have been forfeited to the state in a successful Asset Forfeiture order out of the Durban High Court (Judge H.G. Squires - remember him?).

This order is also a subject of the Shaik judgment appeal to be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeals in late September 2006.

If the asset forfeiture order is upheld by the SCA, then the curator will auction off its shares in ADS to the highest bidder.

But what is diabolical is that Dr Maduna wants some ADS shares which have become available through asset forfeiture.

By pursuing Thint on the bribery charge and if the State on Behalf of the People wins against Thint, then Thint's 60% shares in ADS will also surely be forfeited to the State.

If either Shaik or Thint are found guilty of corruption involving the corvette combat suite contract, then Armscor should invoke the  Remedy in Case of Bribes clause as contained in the Corvette Umbrella Agreement against Thint. This should cost Thint at least 10% of the escalated contract value of the corvette combat suite (i.e. about 10% of R5 billion = R500 million in 2006 Rands).

Both Armscor and the State Tender Board should also be blacklisting Thint if If either Shaik or Thint are found guilty of corruption involving the corvette combat suite contract. Thint should never get a state contract in the Republic for the duration of the blacklist (10 to 20 years).

The ADS shares should in all reality be worth diddly squat.

Now Maduna being a practising doctor of laws and insider to the above would surely know all of this.

Or is this a classic case of poop and scoop?

But whatever, the interference of both Maduna and Ngcuka is both assenine and unacceptable. This should be just one aspect of re-investigation by SCOPA and/or a independent commission of enquiry and or the SIU.

As for Thint's conduct now recorded under oath by Moynot: just takes the notion of The Candid Frenchman to stratospheric levels.