Publication: The Star Issued: Date: 2007-05-25 Reporter: Tania Broughton

Shaik Faces Agonising Wait

 

Publication 

The Star
Date

2007-05-25

Reporter

 Tania Broughton

Web Link

www.thestar.co.za

 

He sank himself in his evidence - state

Convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik is set for an agonising wait as the Constitutional Court deliberates over whether it will leave his door to freedom slightly ajar and hear his appeal, or whether it will slam it firmly and finally shut.

"Win or lose, justice will prevail", his brother Mo Shaik said after the two-day hearing yesterday, in which Shaik's legal team argued for leave to appeal against his convictions and effective 15-year sentence for corruption and fraud.

"We feel for the first time that the issues were aired in the way they should have been *1," Mo Shaik told reporters outside the court.

In replying argument at the tail end of the hearing yesterday, Shaik's advocate, Martin Brassey SC, conceded that Shaik had "high thresholds to cross" in his contention that he had not received a fair trial because he had been in the dock alone and not with his alleged co-conspirators, Jacob Zuma and French arms company Thint.

He repeated his previous argument that it would have been better for Shaik had ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma been charged with him *2.

Contesting argument by the state that Shaik could have simply called Zuma as a witness in his trial before Durban High Court Judge Hilary Squires, Brassey said this had "an air of unreality about it".

"For an accused to call a compatriot in the struggle who is now the deputy president (of South Africa) in circumstances where he will have to carefully weigh his answers … could this have been sensibly done? The answer is it could not.

"It is not necessary for me to ask you to speculate as to what went on behind the scenes between Shaik, his legal team and Zuma. Even the most infertile of imaginations could lend itself to that."

Responding to questions from Chief Justice Pius Langa as to whether Shaik would have preferred Zuma to have been charged with him, he replied: "Loosely, yes.

"Can you imagine, he (Zuma), a man of such stature, testifying from the witness box, having just left the dock, in an open and frank manner which would have dispelled the unfortunate impression my client might have made, brought on because he is bombastic?

"Zuma would have shed compelling light on the matter."

Asked by Judge Kate O'Regan why he thought Zuma could have provided exculpatory evidence when he was an alleged co-conspirator, Brassey replied: "It is possible for one witness to be manifestly poor, while the next is a saint by comparison *3."

Earlier, advocate Wim Trengove, for the state, argued that Shaik had sunk himself on his own evidence.

"This is an accused who, assisted by experienced senior counsel … ran a case in the (Durban) high court and in the Supreme Court of Appeal on its merits and then failed.

"Now he has a new team of lawyers and they concluded that, on the record, there was no hope of an appeal (to the Constitutional Court) … so now they are seeking to raise new evidence and come here with a wholly new case."

Trengove said he would have thought Zuma would have been eager to testify at Shaik's trial and not "shirked his friend in need and let him go to jail".

"His (Shaik's) lawyers obviously thought they were better off without him *4."

Trengove also denied that Shaik's trial had been a "dry run" for an eventual prosecution of Zuma and Thint, and said it had been a "perfectly legitimate decision" to go with what the state considered to be "the strongest case first".

Even Shaik's lawyers conceded that he had lied during his trial and that was one of the reasons for his conviction.

Judgment was reserved.

With acknowledgements to Tania Broughton and The Star.


*1       If this were true, which it is clearly not, this is the fault of the convicted and his multiple legal teams.


*2      It would have been better had ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma been charged with Shaik, but this is an entirely different argument.


*3      Comparison or otherwise, "saints" derive from only the most fertile of imaginations.


*4      This is just part of it, far more pressing was that Zuma would be better off if he didn't have to testify.