Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was given leave on Friday to go to the Supreme Court of Appeal against one of two corruption convictions and one of fraud.
Durban High Court Judge Hillary Squires granted Shaik leave to challenge his convictions on the two charges on limited grounds.
But Judge Squires denied him permission to appeal against his conviction on the first corruption charge, which relates to ”a generally corrupt relationship” with former deputy president Jacob Zuma and a series of payments to him.
On the fraud charge, Shaik was granted leave to challenge the finding that he had discussed the irregular write-off of loans at a meeting with his accountants.
On count three, the other corruption charge, he will challenge whether the trial court had been correct in admitting as evidence an encrypted fax detailing a meeting where Shaik allegedly negotiated a bribe for Zuma. He could also ask the Supreme Court of Appeal to consider whether the author of the fax could be considered a trustworthy witness.
Several of Shaik’s co-accused companies were also granted limited leave to appeal.
Shaik said he is grateful for the judge’s ruling ”and obviously we will take that option”.
”Obviously, one would like to be victorious on all the charges, but we are in the legal process now.”
His legal team is considering whether to petition the chief justice for leave to appeal those charges for which he was denied leave by Judge Squires.
Shaik, accompanied by his brothers, bodyguards and legal team, excused himself, saying: ”I have to go to prayer.”
He was holding what appeared to be a string of prayer beads.
On Tuesday, Shaik’s legal team argued that friendship and camaraderie, not self-interest, were behind payments he had made to Zuma.
Defence advocate Francois van Zyl argued that the men had an enduring friendship which was forged during the anti-apartheid struggle.
Following Shaik’s conviction in June, Zuma was relieved of his duties and is to go on trial on related charges later this year. The first corruption charge entailed a ”generally corrupt relationship” between the two men and payments to Zuma to the tune of more than R1,2-million.
But Shaik contended that his Nkobi group of companies never got any government contract or tender as a result of the payments, and denied they were made to persuade Zuma into committing or omitting any act in his favour.
On count two, the fraud charge, Van Zyl argued that Judge Squires had erred in rejecting Shaik’s evidence that he had been unaware of the irregular writing-off of loan accounts on the books of his Nkobi groups of companies. Some of this money went to Zuma.
The second corruption charge deals with Shaik’s alleged attempts to secure a bribe of R500 000 a year for Zuma from French arms company Thomson-CSF in return for protection from a probe into South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal.
On this count, Van Zyl said the court should not have allowed as evidence an encrypted fax allegedly detailing a meeting to organise the deal.
He also argued that the sentence imposed on Shaik was ”shockingly inappropriate”.
Shaik was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on each of the corruption charges and three years for fraud. Judge Squires ordered the three penalties to run concurrently.
In counter-argument, the state said there was no reasonable prospect of another court coming to a different conclusion on Judge Squires’s analysis of the evidence.
Leave to appeal should not be granted merely because a matter is controversial or has elicited uninformed public criticism, argued prosecutor Billy Downer. — Sapa