The state has failed to prove its corruption case against former Western Cape premier Peter Marais, his lawyer told the Bellville Regional Court on Monday.
Applying for his client’s discharge, advocate Craig Webster said there is no evidence that a R300 000 payment by Italian count Riccardo Agusta in 2002 to the now-defunct New National Party (NNP), of which Marais was Western Cape leader at the time, was linked to an act of corruption.
He said the section of the corruption legislation Marais is charged with deals with payments that are followed, not preceded, by corrupt acts.
The state has proved ”no conduct at all” on Marais’s part to ensure a positive environmental record of decision was issued for Augusta’s Roodefontein golf-estate development at Plettenberg Bay after the payments.
In addition, the payment could never have been received with criminal intent.
It was made into the bank account of the NNP and reflected on the party’s bank statement as a donation from Agusta.
”If the state’s contention is to be taken seriously that the R300 000 was corruptly received, it would have to amount to the most well-documented, most advertised and most publicly committed act of corruption on record. It simply was not that,” he said.
Marais’s co-accused, former Western Cape environment minister David Malatsi, has also applied for his discharge.
The applications come at the end of the state’s case, in which 45 witnesses have been called since the first court sitting in November 2003.
The case continues. — Sapa