The Durban High Court reserved judgement on Friday in a bid by arms company Thint for immediate further particulars on the corruption charges it is to face alongside former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
Thint and Thint Holdings, accused numbers two and three in the pending corruption trial, filed papers in the Durban High Court last month seeking to compel the prosecution to make available further particulars on the indictment.
The first accused, Zuma, was listed as an interested party in the Thint application.
”Argument was heard today [Friday], and the judge reserved judgement,” prosecuting advocate Anton Steynberg said on Friday afternoon.
Judgement was likely to be given next week.
The prosecution contends it is unable to provide further particulars until it has finalised the indictment. This it could do only once litigation brought by the applicants, contesting the legality of search warrants used to obtain evidence in the case, was completed.
To complete the final indictment, the prosecution needed clarity as to what evidence it could rely on.
Provisional indictments have been served on Thint and Zuma ahead of the trial, due to get underway on July 31.
In its heads of argument, the state contended on Friday that numerous legal challenges brought by the applicants, contesting the execution of the search warrants, were preventing the state from completing its investigation.
”The inevitable result of this is that the state is not in a position to provide the ‘final’ indictment, nor can the forensic accountants complete their report which, as in the [Schabir] Shaik trial, will form the cornerstone of the state’s case.”
Zuma, acquitted of rape this week, has been charged in line with a high court finding that he had a ”generally corrupt” relationship with his financial adviser, Shaik.
The two Thint companies are South African subsidiaries of French arms-dealer Thales, and stand accused of offering Zuma a R500 000-a-year bribe in exchange for his silence during a probe into the country’s multi-billion rand arms acquisition programme.
In convicting Shaik, the Durban High Court found last year that the money had been a bribe. Shaik is taking the guilty verdict, which resulted in Zuma’s dismissal by President Thabo Mbeki, on appeal.
The state’s heads of argument accused the applicants of seeking to prevent the prosecution from completing its investigation and force it to go to trial on the basis of a provisional indictment, based in essence on the state of investigation as at September 2002.
”It simply makes no sense to insist on further particulars on an indictment that is almost certainly going to be substantially amended. It would not be in the interests of justice, and the state cannot be compelled in the circumstances to provide further particulars in respect of an incomplete investigation,” read the heads of argument
The state denied that it was drawing out the legal process.
The scope of its investigation, which started in 2000, was only broadened to include Zuma in October 2002, the document states. Some of the offences are alleged to have continued until ”at least 2005”.
”In this sense, the investigation is not old, and it has not taken too long.”
The state could not be compelled to halt its investigations and abandon what evidence has been obtained through a premature order for further particulars.
It rejected the applicant’s accusation of mala fides, and complaints that they would not have enough time to prepare for the trial should the further particulars not be forthcoming at this stage.
Various factors militated strongly against the trial being able to proceed on July 31 in any event.
”To compel the state in the present circumstances to provide further particulars in respect of an incomplete investigation on an acknowledged incomplete indictment would effectively be to rule that the state must abandon all opposition to the search [warrant] applications, which are all unresolved.” — Sapa