Giant French defence company Thales is set to be charged alongside Jacob Zuma when the provisional indictment against the former deputy president is delivered.
This is a potential setback for Zuma, as it will make evidence against him easier to place before the court. Given the diplomatic ramifications, it also underscores the Scorpions’ determination to bring the strongest possible case against him.
The National Prosecuting Authority has declined to discuss details of the indictment, but well-placed sources confirm that one or more of Thales’s South African corporate entities will be joined with Zuma as co-accused. Thales is represented in this country by Thint and Thint Holdings.
The companies’ Pretoria offices, as well as the home of managing director Pierre Moynot, were searched in the Scorpions’ countrywide raids in August as part of the Zuma investigation.
Thint was originally an accused in the case against Schabir Shaik, who was convicted on several corruption and fraud counts earlier this year. Charges against the company were withdrawn at the beginning of the Shaik trial in terms of a deal made with former national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka in April 2004.
Charges were withdrawn in exchange for an affidavit from former Thint executive Alain Thetard confirming his authorship of the notorious “encrypted fax”. The handwritten document was a crucial piece of evidence linking Shaik and Zuma to the alleged attempt to secure a R500Â 000 annual bribe from Thales.
Any reinstatement of charges against Thint is likely to set off a new round of legal battles, which will delay the Zuma trial, which is scheduled to begin next July.
Thint’s lawyer, AJ Sooklal, said his clients would regard any move to charge the company as contravening the deal with Ngcuka. “We will immediately bring an application to quash that indictment based on the agreement,” said Sooklal. He maintained his clients had done no wrong and that there were “no new facts to warrant new charges”.
But the case may not be so open and shut. Ngcuka’s May 2004 letter to advocate Kessie Naidu — now representing Zuma, but then representing Thint — confirms the withdrawal of charges against Thint “in the matter of S v Shaik & others”. It will be a matter of legal dispute as to whether this is a blanket indemnity for any future cases based on the same set of facts.
It may be argued that “new facts” have come to light, flowing from evidence that emerged from the Shaik trial and, possibly, from follow-up raids in the Zuma investigation. It might also be argued that a subsequent affidavit by Thetard, in which he tried to give an innocent explanation for the fax, was so transparently false as to constitute a repudiation of the deal.
Moynot, speaking shortly before leaving the country this week, said Thint was preparing a legal challenge to the search and seizure operations carried out by the Scorpions.
“I don’t know what they thought they would find. It was a fishing expedition. I suppose they think we are stupid. To think I would keep [incriminating] evidence at my home!”
Not that there was evidence, Moynot hastened to add. “We have never offered, nor did the deputy president ever ask us for money and never did we pay any. We are just caught up in a political vortex.”
Charging Thint may also cause diplomatic turbulence. The French government still has a minority stake in the once state-owned Thales, and French diplomatic sources have indicated there would be displeasure at the move. It will also add to the international legal pressures facing the company.
This week, a Swiss court gave the go-ahead for the release of banking records relating to alleged kickbacks in the supply of frigates to the Taiwanese navy — revitalising a long-running French judicial investigation of that deal.
The French authorities are also investigating allegations by former head of Thales’s engineering and consulting unit, Michel Josserand, that Thales routinely paid “commissions” to secure contracts.
Charges against Thint will also come as a surprise to strategists in the Zuma camp, who believed parent company Thales had done a deal with President Thabo Mbeki.
This perception flowed from a meeting in May between Mbeki and Thales International boss Jean-Paul Perrier, one of the Thales executives to whom Thetard allegedly sent the encrypted fax detailing the alleged bribe agreement.
Mbeki’s office confirmed the meeting, which happened shortly before Zuma was fired, but indicated that discussions merely concerned investments by the company in South Africa.
Nevertheless, charges against Thint indicate the seriousness of the legal attack on Zuma. Having the French as co-accused may lower procedural hurdles for the prosecution.
Many documents used in the Shaik trial will not automatically be admissible against Zuma, but will be admissible against Thint. If the company is in the dock, it may be easier to bring such documents before court.