Thint wants Pikoli to testify in corruption trial

In an affidavit submitted to the Pietermaritzburg High Court to oppose a prosecution application for an adjournment, Thint director Pierre Moynot gave notice that his defence team would require Pikoli to ‘testify and subject himself to cross-examination’. In his affidavit, Moynot says the State’s decision to re-open charges against Thint after withdrawing them in 2004 because it had struck a deal with then SA director Alain Thetard, was an act of bad faith. He says the State had secured a warrant for Thetard’s arrest after it had discovered that he might be called as a defence witness in Schabir Shaik’s corruption trial. Moynot said Thetard had ‘lost complete faith and trust in the SA prosecuting authorities’, believing the warrant of arrest was ‘a contrived effort to prevent him from being a useful witness for the defence’. Full Sunday Times report

Zuma’s defence will be funded by the state. According to a City Press report, while Zuma had been playing the ‘victim’ by saying in an affidavit to the Pietermaritzburg High Court that the state was dithering on funding his defence, it emerged that all that was needed was information from him about his lawyers. The report estimates that if Zuma\'s trial proceeds it will last three months and cost the taxpayer more than R12m. State Attorney Moipone Mosidi said her office had not dithered on funding. It had been waiting for him to furnish the names of his new advocates. She said Zuma had given them the names of Advocates Seth Nthai and Hennie Vosloo last February, but he\'d changed this and said he would be represented by new advocates. Mosidi said she had spoken to Zuma\'s attorney Michael Hulley more than a week ago, asking him to provide the information. Hulley refused to comment. Full City Press report