The prosecution began its closing arguments in Schabir Shaik’s fraud and corruption trial on Monday, describing the case which began in the Durban High Court in October as an epic.
”Unfortunately it has proven to be anything but heroic,” said prosecutor Billy Downer. He quoted Roman lawyer Cicero, saying: ”O tempora, o mores [Oh the times, oh the morals].”
Downer said Zuma ”at the very least exposed himself to a situation involving the risk of a conflict of interest between his official responsibilities and private interests, and thus acted in neglect of his duties”, reported the Business Day newspaper on Tuesday.
Downer said the relationship between Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Shaik was ”generally corrupt”.
He said the country’s Constitution obliges Zuma not to act in any way that is inconsistent with his office or to ”expose himself to any situation involving the risk of a conflict between his official responsibilities and private interests”.
He said the state has succeeded in proving that Shaik used Zuma’s assistance to gain private business advantage. It is up to the court to decide whether payments amounting to R1,2-million made to and on behalf of Zuma by Shaik were bribes or ”innocent financial assistance” to a friend and comrade, with no strings attached.
However, Downer pointed out that the state believes Zuma assisted Shaik because ”he was aware that his financial fortunes were entwined with Nkobi’s”.
Nkobi Holdings is Shaik’s group of companies. Downer said the state has proved Shaik employed Zuma’s assistance in an attempt to gain business advantage in projects such as the Point Waterfront development project in Durban and the establishment of an eco-tourism school in KwaZulu-Natal.
Later, it was the turn of Downer’s assistant, advocate Anton Steynberg, who told the court that the revolving loan agreement of R1,2-million signed between Shaik and Zuma in 1999 ”remains a mystery to this day”.
He said the original of the agreement has never been produced in court or subjected to forensic analysis.
Steynberg questioned why this loan agreement was only disclosed to the Cabinet in 2001 and said all indications are that ”this contract was never intended to be a properly binding document”.
There were ”very serious contradictions” in the testimony led by the defence’s witnesses about what happened to the loan agreement.
On the second charge of corruption against Shaik, the state alleges that he tried to solicit a bribe for Zuma from Thomson-CSF.
This was in exchange for protection during investigations into alleged irregularities in South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal. The fraud charge relates to allegedly irregular write-offs of R1,2-million from the books of his Nkobi group of companies, which the state says were bribes for Zuma.
At least eight days have been set aside for final argument, and Judge Hillary Squires has yet to announce when judgement will be handed down. — Sapa