Abrahams messed up arms deal, Thales prosecution
THE LEGAL team for French arms company Thales argued that former prosecutions chief Shaun Abrahams relied on the wrong sections of the law when deciding to reinstate charges against its client.
Advocate Anton Katz also said when Abrahams held the post of national director of public prosecutions (NDPP), he was “hell-bent” on prosecuting the corporate and made an irrational decision when doing so.
Katz was appearing before a full bench at the Pietermaritzburg High Court, outlining the reasons why he was seeking a permanent stay of prosecution in the State’s graft case against Thales. Katz argued that when the charges against former president Jacob Zuma were dropped in 2009, there was no mention of Thales.
However, when the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned former National Prosecutions Authority (NPA) head Mokotedi Mphse’s decision, “Thales should have remained out of the indictment”. He said Thales should have been given a chance to make representations before the charges were reinstated, but their submissions were ignored by Abrahams.
“We (Thales) are an add-on, we are some flotsam in the waves, it is not constitutional,” he said, adding that Thales and Zuma had to be viewed independently of one another.
Advocate Mushahida Adhikari, also representing Thales, denied it was responsible for the delay in prosecution from 2005 to 2009.
Adhikari said that the delays were caused by the NPA after 2009. She said the nine-year delay was not really explained when it came to Thales.
“We know the reason for the delays on Zuma’s side, but Thales was not really part of that litigation.”
Adhikari said there were four former Thales employees as witnesses in the matter, but were “not available”.
She said one of the witnesses suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and there was no evidence that three of the Thales witnesses were in South Africa.
Adhikari said he NPA even asked
Interpol to search for the three individuals, to no avail.
Thales, then known as Thomson-CSF, is accused of paying Zuma bribes via his former friend and financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, in relation to South Africa’s multi-billion rand arms deal of 1999. Thales faces one charge of money laundering, one of racketeering and two of corruption.
Meanwhile, Zuma’s family said they were pinning their hopes on his lawyer advocate Muzi Sikhakhane to permanently squash his corruption case.
Super Zuma, who was tasked with speaking on behalf of the family, said: “As the family we are very happy with the lawyers of ubaba (Zuma) who presented a very good argument, and with the manner in which he (Sikhakhane) dealt with the issues yesterday (Monday). He raised issues about injustice in terms of the Constitution, which guarantees each and everyone a right to fair justice system, which should be procedurally fair and lawful.”
Super said the family wanted the NPA to answer whether or not “a 15-year-old case guarantees a fair trial”.
He said the former president regained confidence after listening to Sikhakhane’s presentation.
“He was also very happy about the support he is getting as you saw yesterday (Monday) that the entire family was here.
“The support that he is getting from his comrades makes him very strong.” Very few Zuma supporters were outside the court in support of the former president.
ANC deputy provincial secretary Sipho Hlomuka was the only member of the party’s provincial officials who attended the case. On Monday, Zuma addressed the crowd, which he did not do yesterday after the adjournment of the hearings.
Bishop Vusi Dube, who is an ANC member of the provincial legislature and organiser of Zuma’s supporters, said he told supporters on Monday to only return to court tomorrow and on Friday when Zuma would be able to address them.