Schabir Shaik's lawyer says his client had "no other option" but to concede
that he bribed ANC president Jacob Zuma because of the findings of the lower
courts.
Although accepting the rulings of the two courts that found Shaik guilty of
fraud and corruption, the lawyer stressed that Shaik had never and would never
admit his guilt.
Speaking to The Star after Shaik's final legal bid to stop the state from
confiscating R33-million of his assets deemed the proceeds of crime, Shaik's
attorney, Reeves Parsee, stressed that the confession that Shaik had bribed Zuma
was "fact sensitive" and "had been made only for the purposes of this inquiry".
"We have never conceded that Mr Shaik bribed Mr Zuma, but Mr Shaik, as a
law-abiding citizen, is obliged by the findings of the lower courts to the
extent that the lower courts found that the payments were made.
"Mr Shaik has never accepted and will never admit that he bribed Mr Zuma,"
Parsee said.
The R33-million at the heart of Shaik's dispute with the Asset Forfeiture Unit
is alleged to be a benefit that Shaik obtained after Zuma intervened in a
dispute between him and French arms company Thomson/Thint.
Asked by the court whether there was any evidence that "there had been a bribe"
prior to Zuma's intervention with Thomson, Shaik's counsel, Martin Brassey SC,
instantly responded: "Oh decidedly."
But he raised questions over the links made by the lower courts between
Thomson's reinstatement of Shaik as its black empowerment partner, after Zuma's
July 1998 intervention, and "Shaik's conduct in corrupting Zuma".
"The first link is that Shaik, with the intention to corrupt, bribed Zuma to
perform acts such as the act of intervention at a July 1998 meeting (where Zuma
persuaded Thomson not to sever its ties with Shaik)... We accept that," he said.
According to Brassey, however, the state had not been able to show the last two
parts of the chain:
That Zuma intervened with Thomson as a consequence of the bribes; and
That Thomson had recanted its decision to distance itself from Shaik as a
consequence of Zuma's intervention.
Again pointing out that Zuma had not been charged or called to testify in
Shaik's trial, Brassey stressed that there was nothing to show that Zuma's
decision was not motivated by friendship or a desire to assist his then
financial adviser.
It was the state's case that Zuma met with Thomson after the company - acting on
information that then president Nelson Mandela and then deputy president Thabo
Mbeki did not like Shaik - seemingly started backing out of its relationship
with the businessman.
After meeting Zuma on July 2 1998, Thomson recommitted itself to a business
relationship with Shaik and his companies, resulting in Shaik obtaining a 20
percent interest in African Defence Systems. ADS was awarded, as part of the
Thomson consortium, a multimillion-rand contract to provide the combat munitions
suites for the SA Navy's new corvettes.
Counsel for the state, Wim Trengove, on Wednesday described Brassey's argument
that Zuma's intervention on Shaik's behalf might not have been motivated by a
corrupt purpose as "conceptually flawed".
He further pointed out that Zuma's intervention on Shaik's behalf had been
proved to be "part of a pattern of conduct".
Judgment has been reserved.
* This article was originally published on page 3 of The Star on February 28,
2008