State wants appeal court to approve controversial raids

The Scorpions will this week ask the Supreme Court of Appeal to, at the very least, "preserve" documents seized from the homes and offices of Jacob Zuma.

This is to avoid prosecutors "being at his mercy" should Zuma cry foul over confidentiality issues if he is charged again for corruption, money-laundering, fraud and tax evasion.

First prize for the state in its ongoing legal battles with the ANC deputy president would be a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) stamp of approval for its controversial search-and-seizure raids on the homes and offices of Zuma, his associates and his legal representatives two years ago.

Second prize would be for the 93 000 documents to be copied and kept in a safe place.

This is the submission of advocates Wim Trengove SC, Richard Salmon SC and Andrew Breitenbach, who have been briefed by the state to argue the matter in Bloemfontein this week.

They say Zuma has already suggested that his legal-professional privilege might have been breached by the searches.

"This may well become a contentious issue in a future trial if he were to attempt to impugn the trial on the grounds of an irreparable violation of this.

If this should happen, it would be absolutely vital to have a definitive record of exactly what was seized. Without it, the state will be at the mercy of Zuma in the debate on the issue," according to the advocates.

The SCA will deal with three matters relating to the legitimacy of the raid, the outcome of which are crucial in determining whether Zuma and French arms company Thint will be recharged.

Today, the court was to hear issues surrounding an appeal by the National Prosecuting Authority against a ruling by the Johannesburg High Court declaring the raids on Zuma's Joburg-based attorney, Julekha Mohamed, unlawful.

On Wednesday, the matter before the judges will be an appeal by Thint against a Pretoria High Court ruling which found the raids on its offices to be legal.

Sandwiched between is the main event: the appeal by the National Director of Public Prosecutions against a declaration by Durban High Court Judge Noel Hurt that the search warrants used in the Zuma raids and those on the offices of his Durban-based attorney, Michael Hulley, were fatally flawed.

Zuma is adamant that the raids were a "fishing expedition" into his dealings with other parties and into possible defences he might raise at his trial.

They were designed to have "insight into each and every facet" of his life and behaviour and "to put his financial affairs under a magnifying glass" in order to find anything which could harm him.

The invasion of privacy was "breathtaking", his advocates, Kemp J Kemp SC and Michael Smithers, said in their written submissions.

They said the stated reason for the warrants - to establish if Schabir Shaik had continued payments to Zuma after he was charged, to gather evidence about payments made by others and to probe the new charges of money-laundering, fraud and tax evasion - was a sham.

But in reply,the state says it was perfectly entitled, and in fact duty-bound, to expand its investigation.

Regarding Zuma's contention that Shaik's conviction demonstrated that the state had enough evidence for the successful prosecution of Zuma and that the raids were therefore unwarranted, the state's advocates say this is not so.

"The crime of corruption depends on the intention with which payments are made or received. It does not follow from the fact that Shaik made the payments with a corrupt intention that Zuma received them with the same intention."

In the Shaik matter, the state had demonstrated that the payments were corrupt because they were made at a time when Shaik and his companies could ill afford them, they say.

With acknowledgements to Tania Broughton and The Star.