Thales's appeal for permanent stay in Zuma arms deal trial rejected

FORMER president Jacob Zuma and his co-accused, Thales, are yet to decide whether they will file an appeal against the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruling to dismiss the arms deal case against them.

- BONGANI HANS

Zuma, who now leads the Umkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), had piggybacked on the French arms manufacturer’s application for the permanent stay to escape being tried for fraud, corruption, racketeering, and money laundering charges. Zuma was not in court yesterday. The charges dated back to the 1998 arms deal, which the government had entered into with Thales. The trial has been delayed due to many factors, including attempts to get state prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer off the trial following allegations of bias, which Judge Nkosinathi Chili had rejected in September last year.

After Judge Chili’s ruling yesterday morning, the State and defence teams agreed to postpone the case to December 4. The postponement would give Thales time to decide whether to file an appeal against Judge Chili’s ruling. Zuma would also get time to go to a higher court to appeal against Judge Chilis ruling that Downer should continue prosecuting the matter.

Regarding the stay of prosecution application, Thales’s legal team had, on April 24, argued that continuing with the trial would be constitutionally unfair since its client’s former directors, Pierre Moynto and Alain Thetard, who were its prime witnesses, had died.