The Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial resumed in the Durban High Court on Monday without the hype that signalled the start of the case last October.
Only a handful of people had gathered in the public gallery, including Shaik’s bodyguards, and only die-hard journalists took their seats in the court room.
Shaik only had one of his brothers and his so-called spin doctor Dominic Ntsele supporting him.
Judge Hillary Squires started the case by saying ”anyone who feels a sense of déjàvu, you are not alone”.
Forensic auditor Johan van der Walt, who spent 16 days in the witness box explaining the paper trail that linked Shaik to Deputy President Jacob Zuma, was back in the stand on Monday.
Van der Walt told the court that Deputy President Jacob Zuma owed fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik R2,2-million in capital and interest up to November 2004.
The state alleges that Shaik loaned R1,2-million to Zuma, and Van der Walt was called back and questioned on how he had calculated the interest on this amount.
Previously he had done it on a daily basis, whereas the defence said it was done annually.
The state alleges that the money given to Zuma was a bribe and that he and Shaik had a generally corrupt relationship.
However, the defence earlier produced a R2-million revolving loan agreement between the two, which came into effect in May 1999.
According to this agreement, the interest should be calculated at prime plus 2%. The court previously heard that Zuma was considering at repaying the amount with his pension, said to be worth about R3,3-million.
Shaik’s other charge of corruption includes an alleged attempt to solicit a R500 000-a-year bribe for Zuma from French arms company Thomson CSF.
This was allegedly in exchange for protection during investigations into irregularities in South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal. Shaik and his Nkobi group of companies and Thomson CSF secured the naval corvette contract through African Defence Systems.
His fraud charge relates to the irregular writing off of R1,2-million in his books, which Shaik says was a mistake and was later rectified. — Sapa