Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2007-01-26 Reporter: Greg Arde

Is Schabir Shaik Shamming?

 

Publication 

Independent Online

Date

2007-01-26

Reporter

 Greg Arde

Web Link

www.iol.co.za

 

With South Africa's most celebrated prisoner more than 60 days into his private hospital stay, many readers are asking whether he is really ill, or is Schabir Shaik shamming?

Shaik may have a history of cheating, in his exams and in business, but is he being honest about his illness?

Is his blood-pressure so bad that he needs to be hospitalised?

Visitors and staff at St Augustine's, the private hospital where Shaik is staying, have quite a bit to say about the confidant of presidential wannabee Jacob Zuma.

'He looks hale and hearty'

The first thing they'll tell you is that Shaik takes regular afternoon walks and has a flood of visitors, including, according to one unconfirmed claim, Zuma, KwaZulu-Natal Premier S'bu Ndebele and his provincial cabinet colleague, Zweli Mkhize.

Ndebele's staff flatly denied this, while Mkhize's spokesperson could not confirm it one way or the other. Zuma's spokesperson said: "I am not aware of that."

For most people hospitals are grim places, where they sit around looking worried and nervous, for their condition or that of loved ones.

Most people except convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik, if you believe the avalanche of letters and calls to Durban newspapers.

Readers believe Shaik is trying to stay out of the less salubrious setting of Qalakabusha Prison in Empangeni for as long as possible.

In the absence of any independent assessment of Shaik's condition, rumours are flying and stories abound.

"He goes for walks in the car park at 5pm and there he sees his friends," one staffer whispered to a reporter.

"I heard that after 7pm, a big black Mercedes Benz arrives to pick him up and take him home every night," was another offering for The Pretoria News' sister newspaper, The Mercury, to follow up.

Perched on Durban's Berea, with splendid views of the sea, Shaik's private ward at St Augustine's is a far cry from any of South Africa's overcrowded prisons whose 164 000 inmates live on top of each other. Any sane person would have an aversion to the prospect of 15 years in jail.

But, 60 days plus in a private hospital attracts a bit of attention, and scathing comments like this, from one doctor who passes Shaik at St Augustine's regularly: "I've seen him walking around. He looks hale and hearty."

But one staffer said the media spotlight was getting to Shaik.

And so it should, one doctor told The Mercury.

"People with hypertension take medication for it, and they're fine. As for depression, all prisoners are likely to be depressed, that's natural.

"If the government wants to avoid embarrassment, it should get a second opinion on his condition or we will have no faith in the rules.

"If they don't, we'll think that some people aren't equal before the law, that they get special treatment."

Judge Nathan Erasmus, who heads up the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons, said earlier this week: "I am continuously monitoring the situation."

A medical practitioner went so far as to make this claim to The Mercury: "In my opinion this is a case of a crooked patient and crooked doctors."

This article was originally published on page 2 of Pretoria News on January 26, 2007

With acknowledgements to Greg Arde and Independent Online.