Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2007-05-20 Reporter: Karyn Maughan

Shaik Makes Desperate Bid to Avoid Sentence

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent

Date

2007-05-20

Reporter

 Karyn Maughan

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

It's been nearly two years since Schabir Shaik heard the three words that brought his once charmed life to an abrupt end: guilty, guilty, guilty.

Now Jacob Zuma's former financial adviser is pinning his last hopes for freedom on the constitutional court.

Shaik knows that if his appeal fails, he will have to serve at least 10 years of his effective 15-year sentence for corruption, fraud and money-laundering, relating to his relationship with the ANC deputy president. And his desperation to avoid that fate has become more than obvious.

Shaik first drew the state's scorn with his claim, made in papers before the court, that his 15-year corruption sentence was too severe, particularly considering that the crime was committed when the economic effects of apartheid still persisted, and the offence amounted to an act of "civil disobedience".

Shaik's legal team, which no longer includes heavyweights Francois van Zyl and Jeremy Gauntlett, contends that his acts "defied the law under unjust economic conditions that inhibited self-advancement".

Johan du Plooy, a senior member of the Directorate of Special Operations (the Scorpions), said the submissions were "hopeless".

Now, in an apparent last-minute bid to get Shaik released earlier, his lawyers have filed new submissions to the constitutional court.

They argued that Shaik should never have been given the prescribed 15-year jail term for corruption because he committed the offence before minimum sentencing provisions became law.

In "supplementary written argument" filed with the court late last month, advocate H Gani said the issue was being raised because "it had not occurred to [Shaik's] legal representatives before" - an apparent slight against Shaik's former legal team. The state has branded this argument as "bad in law" and will argue that Shaik should not be allowed to make this claim so belatedly.

The constitutional court will hear Shaik's appeal application on Wednesday, when his legal team begins arguing their main constitutional point: that Shaik should have been tried with Zuma and French arms company Thint, from whom he secured the bribe for Zuma.

Du Plooy submitted a strongly worded affidavit in response to Shaik's claims that the way in which he had been investigated and prosecuted for corruption had violated his rights to a fair trial.

Du Plooy described Shaik's argument as "absurd" and claimed that it was the state that suffered as a result of the decision by Bulelani Ngcuka - then head of the National Prosecuting Authority - not to prosecute Zuma and Thint.

Du Plooy labelled Shaik's efforts to appeal to the constitutional court as "simply an attempt … to avoid the consequences of conviction and sentences properly imposed and confirmed on appeal".

With acknowledgements to Karyn Maughan and Sunday Independent.