Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2007-05-27 Reporter: Jocelyn Maker Reporter: Megan Power

Yunis Shaik, Brother Chippy’s Keeper

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2007-05-27

Reporter
Jocelyn Maker, Megan Power

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

When the story about the bogus thesis broke, Yunis sent an e-mail to the Sunday Times in which he wrote a solitary word in capital letters: OUCH!

Yunis Shaik has wriggled in quicksand over the past months as he battled to keep the whereabouts of his brother Chippy under wraps.

Today the Sunday Times can reveal the web spun to protect the former Department of Defence chief of acquisitions.

In recent months, Yunis has represented his brother at every turn.

This week, eyebrows were raised when Chippy did not accompany his brothers Mo and Yunis to the Constitutional Court appeal launched by their jailed fraudster brother Schabir.

Just three months ago, the Sunday Times was told that Chippy had fled the country and settled in Australia.

On March 18 , the newspaper said Chippy had gone to ground and that his family had thrown a veil of secrecy over his whereabouts.

But Yunis denied that his brother had fled, describing the claim as “completely, utterly rubbish” and “off the wall”.

These are the different tales the family spun about Chippy’s whereabouts:

His wife, Zarina said her husband was in Mozambique.

Yunis said: “He is still here. He travels constantly up and down to Mozambique, where he has a mining engineering company.”

At Chippy’s second home in Fourways in Johannesburg, friend Zane Isaacs said: “He’s gone back to Durban. He is a Durban boy and you know how they miss the sea.”

But the Sunday Times established that a Dr Shamin Shaik ­ with the same identity number as Chippy Shaik ­ had left for Singapore on flight SQ479 on March 11.

His due date back to South Africa was April 30, but Chippy, who is in possession of three passports, has not returned to South Africa on the passport he is believed to have used to leave the country on.

What he fears most is the investigation by German authorities into claims that he was paid a R21-million bribe from German arms manufacturer ThyssenKrupp to ensure the success of its bid to supply South Africa with corvettes.

But the Shaik family has long claimed he had nothing to run away from as he has not been approached by the Scorpions for questioning.

Last Friday, when the Sunday Times asked Yunis where Chippy was, he said his brother’s whereabouts were a private matter.

Asked if Chippy was overseas he said: “No, he is right now in Durban, having lunch with his sister.”

The Sunday Times has been told that Yunis, during a meeting at a Hyde Park, Johannesburg restaurant with a lawyer this week, discussed finding a “soft journalist” on a TV channel to deflect the bad press Chippy had been getting over the bogus thesis he concocted with University of KwaZulu-Natal academics Professor Viktor Verijenko and Professor Sarp Adali.

Yunis is alleged, during that meeting, to have said that Chippy was in the country and was only two hours away from Johannesburg.

On the day the Sunday Times broke the story about the bogus thesis under the headline “Dr Chippy Fake!”, Yunis sent an e-mail to the newspaper at 1.02pm in which he wrote a solitary word in capital letters: OUCH!

With acknowledgement to Jocelyn Maker, Megan Power and Sunday Times.

Eina.