Judge Hillary Squires on Thursday delivered a devastating blow to the defence in the Schabir Shaik corruption trial by finding the majority of disputed documents admissible as evidence.

These include the notorious "encrypted fax", in which it is allegedly confirmed that the Deputy President Jacob Zuma solicited a R500 000 annual bribe from French defence company Thomson CSF via its local director, Alain Thetard.

The defence team tried desperately to keep the fax out to the evidence. The judgement is damaging not only for Shaik but for Zuma, who was effectively found to be prima facie a co-conspirator in the bribe agreement.

In another blow to both Shaik and Zuma, Judge Squires also admitted an affidavit from Malaysian businessman David Wilson in which he describes how Zuma personally intervened to try get Shaik a share in Durban's Point Waterfront development.

Wilson's company Renong was awarded the contract. The defence argued that Wilson's statement was inadmissible because at the eleventh hour the businessman apparently bowed to political pressure from the Malaysian government and refused to come to South African to testify.

Wilson's affidavit describes a meeting between himself, Shaik and Zuma at Shaik's Durban apartment. "Mr Jacob Zuma was clearly uncomfortable during the meeting and I gained the clear impression …he was there under sufferance …

"He [Zuma] said that he was not happy with the persons nominated to represent the empowerment interests in the Point development, although he offered no explanation for this. He proposed that Mr Shabir (sic) Shaik should be involved in the project and stressed repeatedly that he would be a good partner for the job.

"During the course of the discussions, it became increasingly clear that Mr Jacob Zuma was acting as if Mr Schabir Shaik had some sort of hold over him. At one point, Mr Zuma made mention of the support and assistance he received form (sic) Mr Schabir Shaik. I gained the strong impression that this support and assistance was of a financial nature."

Finally, further doubt has been cast on the defence version that payments to Zuma were loans covered by a R2-million revolving loan agreement reached between himself and Shaik in 1999.

Early in the trial, the defence lawyers tabled a copy of the loan agreement faxed from the deputy president's office, while telling the court they understood the original was lodged in the confidential section of the parliamentary registrar of members' interests.

Attempts by the prosecution to obtain the original were delayed until January this year, when Speaker Baleka Mbete finally responded to requests for access to information. On January 24 the speaker wrote to the prosecution saying that, following a complaint regarding the question of Zuma's disclosure in 2003, Zuma had written to the registrar indicating he had declared the loans from Shaik in terms of the executive code of ethics for Cabinet ministers.

Mbete referred the prosecution to Cabinet secretary Frank Chikane. In a letter received on Wednesday, Chikane told prosecutors that no copy of the loan agreement was lodged in his files, though he pointed out that only a disclosure of the liability was necessary. Chikane omitted to say whether Zuma had indeed made such a disclosure.

However, it is the details of Judge Squire's judgement that may give Shaik and Zuma sleepless nights until the case resumes on Monday.

Shaik told reporters afterwards he had prepared himself for a worst case scenario and this was it.

In his judgement Judge Squires said the evidence showed that Thomson maintained a "tenacious interest" in securing contracts. "Particularly was this evident over the arms acquisition defence programme, when a welter of internal notes and memos shows that this resolve plainly included meeting and cultivating leading political figures in the government hierarchy … That business interests could be advanced by informal goodwill was by no means an alien concept to these companies.

"So far as the disputed fax is concerned, an early indication of awareness of Jacob Zuma's potential influence is contained in one of these memos, which identifies his as the ‘rising man'…

"Reports compiled by Thetard, the local Thomson director, as he monitored events during the bidding process, indicate that Zuma certainly involved himself in the informal contacts between bidders and selectors; and actually intervened with Thomsons on Shaik's behalf."

The notorious encrypted fax was allegedly sent on March 17 2000 to Thetard's superiors in France, describing a meeting with Shaik and Zuma. In his assessment of the fax, Judge Squires states : "It is reporting the successful conclusion of the common purpose, namely obtaining confirmation by Zuma of the suggested performance and quid pro quo originally put forward by Shaik the previous year …

"It seems unarguably to be the final step in the accomplishment of an agreement to pay Zuma the money indicated in exchange for his influence to protect and further Thomson's interests …"

With acknowledgements to Sam Sole and the Mail & Guardian.