Former president Jacob Zuma made it clear on Thursday that he is now pinning his hopes on French arms manufacturers to escape prosecution on decades-old arms deal fraud and corruption charges.
The lawyers of the Umkhonto Wesizwe Party (MKP) leader supported Thales’ application to have the case removed from the court roll on the basis that several key witnesses have since died with the start of the trial.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Zuma and Thales faced more than 700 charges, including racketeering and money laundering.
Zuma is facing allegations that he accepted over R4 million for 10 years from Thales through his former financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, who was at the time one of the directors of the company.
Before Judge Nkosinathi Chili heard Thales’s application for the permanent stay of prosecution, he delivered a judgment where he rejected Zuma’s application for leave to appeal his (Chili’s) refusal to have Advocate Billy Downer removed from prosecuting the matter.
It was a hive of activity inside and outside the court as the ANC supporters also attended the ongoing inquest on the mysterious death of ANC president-general Inkosi Albert Luthuli.
Addressing the court, Zuma’s lawyer, Advocate Dali Mpofu, said that without key witnesses to testify for or against Thales, the case against Thales and Zuma should be thrown out.
“So my lord, on those grounds, the relief sought by Thales should be granted because of the nature of the absence of the witnesses concerned,” said Mpofu.
Thales’s legal representative, Advocate Barry Roux, argued that without Pierre Moynto and Alain Thetard, senior Thales officials who have since died, the continuation of the trial would be unfair and prejudiced to his client.
NPA’s Andrew Breitenbach had argued that Thales would not be prejudiced if the case continued without the Thales officials because Shaik was still alive and of sound mind to testify during the trial. He said Shaik had no concern about incriminating himself because he had already been punished for the same case.
However, another Zuma representative, Naba Buthelezi, said the previous trial proved Shaik to be an unreliable witness.
He said the arms deal matter was facing a situation whereby the state should be declining to prosecute it because of the lack of evidence due to the dead witnesses.
He also denied the NPA’s claims that Zuma was facing 783 charges.
“We only have 18 counts,” said Buthelezi.
He said that for the case to be trial-ready, the encrypted fax version, which Thetard wrote in French before being translated into English, should be challenged through cross-examination.
“We need to ask Mr Thetard ‘did or didn’t you write the fax, and if you did, what did you mean’, but Mr Thetard is not here and can no longer be here.
“If we continue with the trial, we can no longer challenge these allegations,” said Buthelezi.
He said the trial could be unconstitutional.
Roux said the absence of Moynot and Thetard rendered the trial “seriously insurmountable as their evidence is irreparable.
Breitenbach said that besides Shaik, several witnesses could still be located and called to testify, and could be cross-examined by both defendants and the state.
He said the other two witnesses were out of the country, but they could be made available through international cooperation to give testimony.
“There are copies of evidence, there are transcripts of evidence, there is a wealth of documents, which were handed over to them (Thales) in 2006 and 2000.
“They (Thales officials) were represented by several attorneys, one of them is a South African attorney who, at the time, made necessary inquiries as to what actually happened,” he said.
He said there was also a French-based attorney who worked with Thales in dealing with the charges and spoke to several people, including the deceased, in 2002.
“It could be most surprising that she and other lawyers involved did not consult properly with relevant Thales employees, take notes of what they said and obtained and kept the documents,” said Breitenbach.
The matter was postponed to June 3 for the judgement.
