In defiance of medical convention and against the best predictions of a team of doctors, convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik has survived a decade since his release from prison on medical parole.
Both Shaik and his doctor have insisted that the correct medical decision was taken at the time.
It was a sunny March day in 2009 when Shaik — former financial adviser and close aide to former president Jacob Zuma — was quietly moved by ambulance from Durban’s specialist Nkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital to his home, in the leafy suburb of Musgrave on the city’s ridge.
Since his release the quiet cosmopole has been spotted at restaurants and coffee shops and even hit the links at the Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course in Reservoir Hills, all while facing the ticking clock of terminal illness.
Shaik, who was contacted last week, said his blood pressure issues still plagued him.
“Today I am not well at all … my blood pressure you know ... I can’t talk now actually because I am very sick,” he said, while coughing.
He abruptly ended the call, and later apologised that ill-health had cut short an interview about his decade beyond the prison bars.
Shaik’s proximity to the former president was no secret with Zuma often referring to his financial adviser as a “brother”.
Shaik had, according to a forensic report which formed the cornerstone of the state’s case when it first pursued Zuma in 2007, managed all facets of the then deputy president’s financial affairs. This included paying hospital bills‚ debts‚ rent‚ vehicles‚ bonds‚ traffic fines‚ wives‚ school fees‚ kids’ pocket money and ANC membership.
Zuma had, the state held, used his position in government to further the business interests of Shaik and French arms firm Thint, in exchange for money.
The document showed Shaik’s astonishing largesse‚ as he funnelled R4,072,499 to Zuma in 783 separate payments between October 25 1995 and July 1 2005.
The charges were eventually dropped and Zuma ascended to the throne of the ruling party. That decision by the National Prosecuting Authority was eventually overturned and Zuma is currently facing charges again.
Shaik was convicted on graft charges and sentenced to 15 years behind bars, but only served 28 months, mostly in the hospital suites of Netcare St Augustine’s and Nkosi Albert Luthuli.
His protracted hospital stays formed the basis for a recommendation that he be released on medical parole, a clause in SA’s penal system which allows terminally ill prisoners to see out their twilight days with their families.
When his application was being considered, his doctors told the parole board that he was in “the final phase of a terminal disease”.
They held he was also clinically depressed‚ losing his eyesight‚ had suffered a stroke and would die from “severe” high blood pressure.
In a 2008 report, Prof DP Naidoo told the head of Durban’s Westville Prison that Shaik could “not be kept in hospital indefinitely”.
“Since the prison authorities are reluctant to manage him at the prison hospital, where conditions are suboptimal, we recommend that he be considered for medical parole.”
It details Shaik’s admission to the intensive care unit at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban at the time, and details how the “ECG showed changes compatible with an acute myocardial injury pattern which, if not acted upon urgently, may have led to a heart attack”.
But a decade after Shaik’s liberation, Naidoo remains steadfast in his diagnosis.
“I don’t like to speak about this but what I can say is that I stand by my recommendation that hospital was not the right place for him,” he said.
He would not say whether his recommendation, and Shaik’s shock triumph over terminal illness, had been a blight on his medical career.
While on parole Shaik applied to the parole board to have his conditions relaxed to better accommodate his lifestyle. In 2015 the board capitulated — with Shaik allowed to work from 8am to 6.30pm from Monday to Friday‚ attend his son’s school functions and play a sport once a week.
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