Publication: The Weekender Issued: Date: 2007-03-03 Reporter: Edward West Reporter:

Zuma-Shaik Corruption Witness Dies

 

Publication 

The Weekender

Date

2007-03-03

Reporter

Edward West

Web Link

www.bday.co.za

 

The Mauritian Economic Crime Office official best able to identify the original of a controversial diary that allegedly proves a meeting between Jacob Zuma, Schabir Shaik and former Thint CE Alain Thetard, has died.

This emerged in an affidavit by National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) special investigator Isak du Plooy, which was handed to legal representatives of Zuma and French arms manufacturer Thint on Friday. The affidavit is part of the NPA’s bid to get the documents from Mauritius, which Zuma and Thint are opposing.

The case, part of the NPA’s ongoing investigations against Zuma and Thint over alleged corruption linked to the controversial arms deal, is scheduled to be argued at the Pietermaritzburg High Court on March 22 and 23.

Du Plooy said the NPA wanted to obtain evidence from witnesses who will be able to identify Thetard’s 2000 diary and how it was kept because the person who had been best able to identify the copies of the diary and testify how they were made, an Insp Jugoo of the Economic Crime Office in Mauritius, had died.

Thetard’s diary could prove that a meeting did take place in March 2000 between Thetard, Zuma and Shaik, Zuma’s former financial adviser who is serving a 15-year sentence for fraud and corruption. It is at that meeting that the state alleges a R500 000-a-year bribe for Zuma was discussed.

“This is entirely new information…. The state had never obtained the original documents listed and this information that is sought is different from the copies that were previously obtained and utilised in the investigation and the Shaik trial," Du Plooy said.

He denied claims by Thint that the removal of the copies of the diary from Mauritius had been irregular, and he questioned how they could then “claim in the same breath that it is not important for the prosecution to secure production of the original documents".

Du Plooy said the high court in the Shaik case had determined that a Mauritius Supreme Court order permitted the copies to be taken. He said proper diplomatic procedures had been followed in obtaining the copies and he described as “far-fetched" an allegation by Thint that a senior member of the NPA directorate of special operations had “blatantly lied under oath to the judicial authorities of Mauritius."

The NPA applied to the high court on December 12 last year for a letter of request to the Mauritian attorney-general seeking the release of documents seized during a raid on Thint’s offices in Mauritius and kept by that country’s courts.

The NPA has launched a fresh investigation against Zuma and Thint after judge Herbert Msimang struck the case off the court’s roll in September last year after the state sought a postponement. The Mauritian documents were cited as one of the reasons for the postponement.

Du Plooy on Friday reiterated in his affidavit that the state had not yet decided whether it would recharge Zuma or Thint, and that “it would be absurd" to suggest an investigator be obliged to wait for a trial to start before being allowed to accumulate the evidence needed for an investigation, as had been claimed by opposing counsel.

With acknowledgement to Edward West and The Weekender.