Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2007-06-10 Reporter: Jeremy Gordin

Affidavit Could Frustrate NPA's Bid for Original Thint Documents

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent

Date

2007-06-10

Reporter

 Jeremy Gordin

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

An affidavit that the lawyers for French arms manufacturer Thint intend submitting to the supreme court of appeal (SCA) in a few weeks is going to cause some gloom at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). The NPA celebrated this week after the decision by Judge Jan Hugo in the Durban high court that the authority could go ahead and send "a letter of request" to Mauritian authorities for original documents to aid in the investigation into Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president, and Thint.

This followed an objection by Zuma and Thint to the April judgment of Judge Philip Levensohn, the deputy judge president of KwaZulu-Natal, who said that he would issue a letter of request on behalf of the NPA. Zuma and Thint told Hugo that they were going to appeal against Levensohn's judgment before the SCA in September and asked for an interim hold on the request. Hugo said the NPA could go ahead with trying to procure the documents from Mauritius. He ruled, however, that the NPA could not have access to the original documents until the September appeal.

And The Sunday Independent has now learnt *1 that Thint's attorneys recently procured an affidavit from Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, the director-general of the department of foreign affairs. In response to a request for access to information, Ntsaluba said that no records of any request for mutual legal assistance to the Republic of Mauritius by the national director of public prosecutions (then Bulelani Ngcuka) in the weeks following September 2001 could be found in the department's database or records.

The significance of Ntsaluba's affidavit is that one of the reasons for Levinsohn's decision in April to issue a letter of request was an affidavit from Gerda Ferreira *2, a Scorpions investigator, that all correct legal and protocol issues had been followed in September 2001 in procuring the copies of the documents used in the prosecution of Schabir Shaik and of which the Scorpions now want the originals.

"It would now appear," said a legal source *3, "that the Scorpions did not follow the proper protocol - that, as Thint claimed in court in April, the Scorpions simply went on their 2001 raid on Thint's Mauritian offices, took copies of what they needed, and put them in their pockets. This seems to be a breach of international protocol…"

This week Panyaza Lesufi, the NPA spokesman, said following Hugo's judgment that the NPA had reached an advanced stage of its preparation of sending the letter of request, "which requires a lot of protocol work… We should take the letter to the justice department, then to the foreign affairs department and then to the South African embassy in Mauritius".

The NPA might now have to explain in the SCA why these steps were not taken in the first place.

Ironically, the Scorpions already have copies of the documents (mainly former Thint chief Alain Thetard's diary entries) of which they now want the originals - apparently because they believe that, if they go to court against Zuma and Thint with the copies, Zuma and Thint will argue that copies are inadmissible.

As to why Zuma and Thint are fighting so hard against the Scorpions laying their hands on originals of documents that everyone has seen, the answer appears to lie in the words of Kemp J Kemp SC, Zuma's lead counsel.

He said this week that his client was viewing the whole issue of the Scorpions' "ongoing investigation" as similar to the battle of Stalingrad - something that needed to be fought house to house, every inch of the way. "If I can legally stop *4 the Scorpions from getting originals of the documents, then I am going to do that," Kemp said.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and Sunday Independent.


*1       Straight from the House Journal of the Shaik, Zuma, Thint Conspiracy.


*2      It now comes down to a test of the most credibility, Adv. Gerda Ferreira (someone with personal knowledge matter) of the or Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba (someone without personal knowledge matter).


*3      Probably either the great legal minds Attorney Yunis Shaik, or Advocate Kessie Naidu SC, house friend of the editor of the house journal.


*4      The sick thing is, Fellow Country People, it that it is your tax money that is being spent defending these scoundrels every inch of the way, while Advocate Kemp J. Kemp laughs and laughs and laughs when he checks his Money Market account every Saturday morning.