Welcome back to bribes,windle, or steel. I'm Alexandra Rogge, and today we're talking about the Zuma Corruption Cases in South Africa,

the first of which is entering its 15th year of an on-again, off-again drama. My guest is is South African-born but London-based author,

activist, and historian, and the director of investigations at Corruption Watch.

He's the author of five books related to corruption, governance, democratic practice, and the

arms trade. Most recently, he was the lead author of Indefensible, the Seven Myths,

that sustain the Global Arms Trade.

Paul Holden, thank you for joining me.

Thank you.

So why don't we dive right in and have you set the scene for the Zuma case that is currently

working its way through the courts and has been for some time?

Sure.

So that case will, I think we'll just

refer to it as the 783 case, probably the easiest way to do it and I'll explain why it's called

the 783 case a bit later. But really the roots of that case start in 1996, 997. The government

at the time decided to pursue a very large arms deal. At the time, it was estimated to be, to be

valued around about 30 billion, which is about $5 billion. We now know the cost is probably

around 70 billion, which is more like $10 billion. And in that deal, South Africa bought a whole

range of very sophisticated air equipment, mostly from the UK and from German companies,

as well as one Italian company as well. That deal was signed, was finalized in December 1999.

And almost as soon as that happened, there were allegations that this deal wasn't entirely kosher.

But President Zuma was not president then.

No, he wasn't. So he was at at the time, if I can remember quickly,

...