Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2007-02-11 Reporter: Jeremy Gordin Reporter:

Thint CEO Denounces State Bid to Secure Papers as 'Unlawful'

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent
Date

2007-02-11

Reporter

 Jeremy Gordin

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

Shaukatally Oozeer has told the Durban high court that, on October 9 2001, he encountered an unknown person during a raid by the Mauritian Economic Crime Office (ECO) on the offices of his client, Thales Africa, the French arms manufacturer.

Oozeer, a Mauritian advocate, said he asked an officer - identified as the late Chief Inspector Jugoo of the Mauritian police force - who the man was. He was informed the man was "a South African official". Oozeer told Jugoo that the man was not entitled to be present because he was not an employee of ECO.

The man had left the office but waited outside where, according to Oozeer, Jugoo brought him documents and took instructions that certain documents be seized.

Oozeer said he was told later that the person was "advocate [Billy] Downer" - who later was the prosecutor in the case against Schabir Shaik, the Durban businessman sent to jail for 15 years for corruption, and also in the matter against Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president.

Oozeer testified that, after legal steps were taken against the ECO and its successor, the Mauritian Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), for the return of the documents, he was told that 13 documents had not been returned to Thales - but that, per an agreement, the ICAC had undertaken not to communicate any of the documents to South African authorities.

Oozeer's affidavit was part of the bundle of papers filed by Thint, the local subsidiary of Thales, opposing a request by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to have documents related to meetings between Zuma, Shaik and Alain Thetard, then Thint chief executive in South Africa, admitted in terms of the International Co-operation on Criminal Matters Act (ICCMA).

According to Pierre Moynot, the chief executive officer of Thint, the state's attempts to use the ICCMA to obtain the documents was an abuse of the legal process.

One reason for this, Moynot said in his affidavit, was that, according to Oozeer's affidavit, "an invalid and irregular process had taken place in Mauritius" and the documents had been seized. "The state cannot seek to benefit from its unlawful acts," Moynot said.

"The state has initiated a process that was unlawful and has approached this court with unclean hands. This type of conduct ought to not be condoned. To grant a letter of request would amount to condoning such unlawful behaviour. The principle of comity between nations also requires that this court should refuse the application," said Moynot.

The documents, held in Mauritius, include Thetard's diary for 2000 - in which, according to documents submitted by the state last year, it was said that the entry in the diary for March 11 2000 was important for the state in its case against Zuma because it apparently reads that Thetard met Zuma and Shaik in Durban on that day.

Moynot said that it was clear that an offence had been committed *1. Yet the act stated that documentation could be sought in terms of ICCMA only if it was required to determine whether an offence had been committed.

In addition, he said, the state had clearly been in possession of the information and the documents since October 2001 - some of which had already been submitted as evidence in the Shaik trial. That, Moynot said, made a mockery of the claim that the documents were needed to determine whether an offence had been committed and whether, therefore, the state needed to prosecute.

In other words, the state was clearly trying to lay its hands "on evidential material for use at a criminal trial and not for the purpose of use in an investigation", said Moynot.

In March last year, the NPA tried to obtain a similar letter of request but Judge Pete Combrinck ruled in the Durban high court that it would have to be granted by a trial judge.

Last year Judge Herbert Q Msimang struck the case against Zuma and Thint off the roll when the state wanted a postponement, among other reasons, to get the outstanding Mauritian documents.

But, said Moynot, the NPA's application still stood adjourned for it to be heard "by a criminal court on a date to be arranged".



*1       It was clear that an offence had been committed - by Thomson-CSF.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and Sunday Independent.