A Durban businessman with close ties to the governing African National Congress was found guilty on Thursday of paying US$186,000 in bribes to the deputy president, Jacob Zuma, South Africa's second in command and heir apparent, in some eyes, to President Thabo Mbeki.
The verdict brought demands from the ANC's critics for Zuma to resign or to abandon any quest for the presidency when Mbeki leaves office in 2007.
But it remained unclear whether government prosecutors even intended to press charges against Zuma for what the trial judge called "overwhelming" evidence of corruption.
A Durban High Court judge found the businessman, Schabir Shaik, guilty of two counts of corruption and one of fraud, all involving payments to Zuma from 1995 to 2002.
The centerpiece was Shaik's role as a middleman between Zuma and the French arms company Thomson-CSF, which agreed to pay Zuma about US$150,000 while it sought a US$69 million contract to supply ships to the South African navy. Both Thomson and Shaik's company, Nkobi Holdings Proprietary Ltd, were shareholders in a group that won the contract.
Shaik argued that the payments were donations to an educational charity that Zuma had established in KwaZulu-Natal but the judge, Hillary Squires, dismissed that explanation as "ridiculous."
In his ruling, Squires said the evidence, including an encrypted fax in Thomson files and coded letters between Shaik and Zuma, established beyond a doubt that the payments were bribes.
Other evidence, outlined in a 259-page forensic audit, indicated that Shaik's company had sought government help on projects like a Durban hotel and a Malaysian arms deal, and that Shaik had paid for everything from service on Zuma's Mercedes to Armani suits.
During the period in which the payments were made, Zuma served first as the ANC's national chairman and then as Mbeki's appointed deputy president. For much of that time, the audit contended, Zuma was in dire financial straits. On occasion, Shaik's company also ran up large debts to continue the payments.
Although Thursday's verdict affects only Shaik, Squires made it clear that Zuma was compliant in an arrangement that allowed him to "maintain a lifestyle beyond what he could afford."
Squires' verdict sets up a test of South Africa's commitment to the rule of law and the independence of its legal institutions.
The inquiry into the arms deal at the root of Shaik's troubles has already led to the arrest of an ANC legislator who headed parliament's defense committee, and the resignation of a government arms buyer -- Shaik's brother Chippy -- accused of a conflict of interest.
But the much-acclaimed National Prosecuting Authority that made the case against Shaik, nicknamed the Scorpions, has suffered withering political attacks that culminated in the resignation last year of its director and raised questions about its continued existence as an independent arm of government.
The agency declined to say whether prosecutors would now pursue a corruption case against Zuma. "If there is anything to be done about it," said a spokesman, Makhosini Nkosi, "it will be done."
An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported yesterday. The Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February last year on the country’s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has since been deployed on the surface as an orbiter surveyed the planet from space. Among the images taken from space were China’s first photographs of the Martian south pole, where almost all of the planet’s water resources are locked. In 2018, an orbiting probe operated by the European
QUARANTINE SHORTENED: A new protocol detailing risk levels and local policy responses would be ‘more scientific and accurate,’ a health agency spokesman said China’s revised COVID-19 guidelines, which cut a quarantine requirement in half for inbound travelers, also create a standardized policy for mass testing and lockdowns when cases of the disease flare, showing that the country still has a zero-tolerance approach to the virus. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) solidified the position during a trip to Wuhan, where the pathogen first emerged in 2019, saying that China is capable of achieving a “final victory” over the virus. The “zero COVID-19” policy is the most effective and economic approach for the country, Xi said during the trip on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported. The first
‘TOO RISKY’: Palau’s president said deep-sea mining, in which rocks are sucked off the ocean floor, increases the vulnerability of the seabed floor and marine life Concerned about the potential effects of deep-sea mining on ocean biodiversity, the Pacific islands of Palau and Fiji on Monday launched an “alliance” to call for a moratorium of the nascent industry. The backing of a moratorium comes amid a wave of global interest in deep-sea mining, but also growing pressure from some environmental groups and governments to either ban it or ensure it only goes ahead if appropriate regulations are in place. Deep-sea mining uses heavy machinery to suck up off the ocean floor potato-sized rocks or nodules that contain cobalt, manganese and other metals mostly used in batteries. Speaking to a
A flight test of a hypersonic missile system in Hawaii on Wednesday ended in failure due to a problem that occurred after ignition, the US Department of Defense said, delivering a fresh blow to a program that has experienced stumbles. It did not provide details of what took place in the test, but said in an e-mailed statement that “the department remains confident that it is on track to field offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities on target dates beginning in the early 2020s.” “An anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset,” Pentagon spokesman US Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman said in
RSS