Publication: The Weekender Issued: Date: 2007-02-10 Reporter: Sapa Reporter:

State ‘Abused Process’ in Attempt to Get Thint Papers

 

Publication 

The Weekender

Date

2007-02-10

Reporter

 Sapa

Web Link

www.bday.co.za

 

The state’s attempts to use the Durban High Court to obtain documentation from Mauritius amounted to an abuse of process, the court heard on Friday.

Any attempt to obtain documentation from Mauritius would have to be determined by a criminal court, Thint CE Pierre Moynot said in papers before the court.

He described the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA’s) attempts to obtain the documentation in Mauritius using the International Co-operation in Criminal Matters Act as constituting “an abuse of the process of this honourable court”.

The documents, held in Mauritius, include the 2000 diary of former Thint CE Alain Thetard.

In supporting documentation submitted last year it was revealed that “the entry (in Thetard’s diary) for 11 March 2000, is a particularly important piece of evidence for the state and the present prosecution. It appears from this entry that Thetard met with ‘J Zuma + SS’ (Schabir Shaik) in Durban on that day.”

The filed papers are in opposition to the NPA’s request to have documents pertaining to meetings between former deputy president Zuma, businessman Shaik and Thetard (Moynot’s predecessor) released from Mauritius under the act.

Zuma’s legal team was also expected to file opposing papers later on Friday.

In March last year the NPA attempted to obtain a similar letter of request but Judge Pete Combrinck ruled that any letter of request would have to be granted by a trial judge.

Last year Judge Herbert Msimang struck the case against Zuma and Thint from the roll after the state had sought, among other things, a postponement to get the outstanding Mauritian documents.

However, in papers filed on Friday, Moynot said the NPA’s application to Combrinck “still stands adjourned for it to be heard by a criminal court on a date to be arranged”.

Moynot said the state’s attempt in 2001 to seek the documentation from Mauritius was described as “an invalid and irregular process”.

The state cannot seek to benefit from its unlawful acts, he argued.

He said the NPA had already decided that an offence had been committed, although the act says that such documentation was to be sought “to determine” whether an offence had been committed.

He pointed out that the state had already been in possession of the information and the documents since October 2001 and that some of the documentation had already been admitted as evidence. This, he said, made a mockery of the claim that the documents needed to be obtained to determine whether an offence had been committed or whether to prosecute *1.

The state is expected to lodge an answering affidavit by March 2.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and The Weekender.


*1       It seems like convoluted Gallic logic to me.

The State merely wants the originals for submission in court so that they don't have an objection to the admission of copies by the defence.