French arms company Thint on Tuesday questioned why it had been targeted for a search and seizure raid in the investigation against Jacob Zuma, saying it had already been summonsed and handed over "massive amounts" of documents to the National Prosecuting Authority.

Addressing the Constitutional Court in a bid to have Thint documents returned, Peter Hodes said: "The documents were handed to the Scorpions in 2001."

Hodes said a Thint company employee had even helped gather material from a computer.

About 93 000 documents were seized in early morning raids on Thint, Jacob Zuma and Zuma's lawyer, Michael Hulley, on August 18, 2005, as part of a corruption investigation against Zuma.

The parties want the documents back, arguing that the warrants were too broad and were an invasion of their constitutional right to privacy.

The court heard that there was no statute determining exactly what should be in a search warrant, and Hodes argued that no case had been made to Transvaal Judge President Judge Bernard Ngoepe, who issued all the warrants.

"The judge issuing a search warrant is not a rubber stamp, a case has to be made out for it," he said. Without this, there would be "gentle ransacking".

Hodes questioned the content of the Thint warrant, saying that the inclusion of tax evasion charges faced by Zuma on the Thint warrant was "totally unacceptable".

With acknowledgements to Sapa.