It has been a probe that has seen many twists and turns and heads roll,
writes Mondli Makhanya
On March 10 2000, three men sat in a room at the Holiday Inn on Durban’s Marine
Parade.
One of the men was Alain Thetard, the Africa director of Thompson CSF, a leading
French arms company that had secured the deal to equip South Africa’s newly
acquired corvettes with fittings.
The other was Schabir Shaik, a Durban businessman whose company, Nkobi Holdings,
was a partner to Thompson CSF.
The third man in the room was Jacob Zuma, then deputy president of South Africa
and of the ruling African National Congress.
The subject of the meeting was an investigation by the country’s law enforcement
agencies into possible corruption in the manner in which Thompson and Shaik’s
Nkobi Holdings had got the deal. Thetard and Shaik wanted Zuma’s help in
quashing the probe.
Shaik, who was Zuma’s financial adviser and generous benefactor, had promised
the French company that his man would deliver.
Although the exact details of the discussion are unknown, coded minutes spelt
out the agreement reached on that day.
In the encrypted fax, sent by Thetard to Shaik, the minutes of the meeting are
outlined. According to the coded fax, Zuma would receive R500000 a year for
offering “protection” and “support” to the French arms company.
The encrypted fax was to form a central pillar of the Scorpions’ investigation
into Shaik, Thint (and its French parent Thomson/Thales) and Jacob Zuma.
Over the following years, the Scorpions traced a flow of money from the French
to Shaik to Zuma. They discovered how the money had been laundered. An even more
startling discovery was the extent to which Zuma had become parasitically
dependent on Shaik for everything from car-wash money, clothing allowances and
children’s school fees to accommodation.
Zuma’s lifestyle and needs outstripped his income. Shaik, who, as Zuma’s
financial adviser, was in total control of his finances, just paying everything
without flinching. In return, Zuma did Shaik many favours.
It was discovered that while Zuma was KwaZulu-Natal’s MEC for economic affairs,
he had intervened to ensure Shaik got favoured status in deals, had promoted
Nkobi as a more legitimate empowerment partner than other black companies and
written letters endorsing Shaik to potential business partners.
On one occasion, Shaik had even instructed Zuma to accidentally appear at a
venue where potential clients would be so that Shaik could introduce the MEC to
them and show how well-connected he was.
As the investigators dug deeper into the matter, they stumbled across other
benefactors who were financing Zuma’s lifestyle.
These other benefactors, all businessmen who operated away from the glare of
sunlight, had been very generous to Zuma and given him massive “loans” without
ever expecting to be repaid.
By 2002, the Scorpions were ready to interrogate suspects but, as is their
right, the suspects were resisting interrogation.
When then national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka and Scorpions
boss Leonard McCarthy flew to France to seek permission to interrogate Thetard
and other employees who may have been implicated, they were laughed at by the
company bosses and told not to waste their time by asking questions about such
minuscule bribes.
In other developing countries, the French told them, real money was paid out and
not the peanuts they had come to query.
Zuma also avoided interrogation and even sought political help in persuading the
NPA to drop the probe.
For his part, Shaik went to court to avoid being interviewed. It was during one
of these court applications that he slipped the deputy president’s name onto his
court papers, ostensibly to frighten off the investigators.
The strategy backfired.
The Mail & Guardian newspaper got hold of the court papers and blasted wide open
the investigation.
As this was in the aftermath of the alleged plot by Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo
Sexwale and Mathews Phosa against Mbeki, ANC leaders suspected Mbeki of playing
a role in the investigation. He was at it again, they said, trying to ice yet
another potential challenger.
This belief has hung over the case since then. It resulted in Zuma eventually
being used as a rallying point against Mbeki, and eventually led to the toppling
of the former president.
At this point, it’s necessary to look at the various chiefs of the NPA and
Scorpions who were key personae dramatis in this saga.
Bulelani Ngcuka
Nobody is more reviled by Zuma supporters than Ngcuka.
Ngcuka was plucked from the deputy chairmanship of the national council of
provinces to become the country’s first national director of public
prosecutions.
In 1999, he established the Scorpions, a crime-fighting unit that was meant to
target organised crime, corruption and white-collar crime.
When the arms deal investigation was wrenched from then Judge Willem Heath’s
Special Investigations Unit in 2001, the task of probing it was given to
Ngcuka’s NPA, the auditor-general and the Office of the Public Protector.
They produced a report that is today generally regarded as a whitewash. They
found no corruption linked to the primary contracts, the part of the arms deal
where cabinet ministers and highest officials would have had direct involvement.
However, they did indicate that former defence minister Joe Modise, who was by
that stage dead, may have received benefits but maintained that this had not
influenced the transaction. The report also found that there were instances of
corruption in the secondary phase of the contract, the part that involved
fittings. It recommended that criminal charges be pursued against those
fingered.
Shaik, whose brother, Chippy, had been a key part of the arms deal negotiating
team, was one of these individuals. Chippy, it seemed, had leaked some documents
to his brother, which were believed to have advantaged him and Thint in the
bidding process.
It was when Schabir and Thint’s offices were raided in a multi-pronged attack in
South Africa, France and Mauritius in 2001, that the Scorpions discovered mounds
of documentation which implicated, among others, Zuma. Among the finds was a
1997 letter from Shaik’s father-in-law in which he boasted: “And when your man
becomes deputy president, we will be in the pound seats.”
Ngcuka’s role in the prosecution of Zuma is well documented, but it is the
enduring belief that he was being manipulated by Mbeki that has earned him the
status of devil incarnate in the eyes of the Zuma camp.
What made matters worse was his statement that, even though there was a prima
facie case against Zuma, he would not be charged as the case was not winnable.
He then proceeded to charge and convict Shaik on roughly the same crimes as
those allegedly committed by Zuma.
This was seen by Zuma supporters as an attempt to try Zuma through the court of
public opinion rather than take his chances in court.
Ngcuka is still regarded as the hidden hand behind the continued prosecution of
Zuma. Songs insulting him are to this day still sung at Zuma rallies.
Now a businessman, Ngcuka is believed to be one of the key movers behind the
formation of the Congress of the People, further entrenching him as an enemy of
the Zumarites.
Vusi Pikoli
The former director-general of justice and constitutional development was
not a great fan of the Scorpions in his previous life. Government insiders say
he often sided with longtime friend Jackie Selebi in turf wars between the unit
and the South African Police Service.
It was when he arrived at the NPA’s Silverton headquarters that he became a
convert and passionately advocated the work and role of the Scorpions.
When Pikoli was appointed, the Shaik trial was already in progress and it was he
who, in June 2005, decided to proceed with the charges.
As has been the case throughout the Zuma saga, conspiracy theories swirled
around his decision.
Critics pointed to the fact that both Pikoli and Mbeki had flown to Chile at the
same time, in the aftermath of the Shaik judgment and Zuma’s dismissal. It was
there, they argued, that the decision was taken.
Both men denied even seeing each other in Chile, with Mbeki insisting he was
attending to matters of state and Pikoli saying he was there on attorney-general
business.
Pikoli’s status as an enemy of the Zumarites was further cemented when he
authorised the dawn raids on Zuma’s properties and the offices of his attorneys
in August 2005.
He guided the case through many victories and setbacks, including the case being
thrown out by Judge Herbert Msimang in 2006. By the time the NPA secured a court
victory enabling it to reinstate the charges, Pikoli had been suspended by Mbeki
for refusing to delay the prosecution of Selebi. He was subsequently fired by
Mbeki’s successor, President Kgalema Motlanthe.
Mokotedi Mpshe
Brought in to act during Pikoli’s suspension, Mpshe played a schizophrenic
role in the matter.
A rather malleable individual, it was he who, in the days after Selebi’s axing,
ran around Johannesburg two years ago trying to get judges and magistrates to
cancel arrest warrants against Selebi.
Charging Zuma was ultimately Mpshe’s decision to proceed with, a decision which
he signed off in early December 2007, days before the Polokwane conference.
Having signed off on the charges, he stoically defended the decision to charge
Zuma. In court papers fighting against Zuma’s attempts to avoid going to court,
Mpshe has been very firm about the strength of the case.
In the heads of argument in the appeal against Judge Nicholson’s finding, which
Mpshe signed off, the process leading up to the charging of Zuma is outlined in
detail.
Here is an excerpt: “This process was completed by 11 December 2007 whereupon Mr
Mpshe and Mr McCarthy considered the matter as a whole with a view to taking a
decision. They decided on 27 December 2007 to prosecute Mr Zuma again and the
NPA implemented their decision the following day. There was nothing sinister in
the timing of their decision and no basis for an adverse inference against
them.”
This week he stood on the other side of the prosecutors he has been leading,
arguing strongly that Zuma should walk because there had been interference.
And now it is he who Zuma will have to thank for his freedom.