JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has been linked to a multimillion-dollar arms payoff at a trial in Johannesburg, the Times of London said Tuesday.
While Zuma, 42, is not on trial, his name figures prominently in a 45-page indictment against his close friend and multimillionaire Schabir Shaik in alleged payoffs for government arms purchases from European companies.
Shaik, 42, is alleged to have solicited a $75,000 annual retainer for Zuma beginning in 1999 from France's weapons manufacture Thomson-CSF, which has since been renamed Thales.
Prosecutors said in return, Zuma would secure Thomson-CSF's interests in the cabinet and ward off parliamentary inquiries into a $9 billion program to provide South Africa's Armed Forces with modern peripheral military equipment.
The indictment was drawn up after a three-year investigation by the Scorpions, the South African equivalent of the FBI. It states there was "a general corrupt relationship" between Shaik and Zuma.
The main arms purchases are of Hawk trainer jets from Britain, Gripen fighter bombers jointly manufactured by Sweden's Saab and British Aerospace, and a fleet of corvettes, naval helicopters and submarines from Germany.
