ARMS DEAL SAGA SET FOR COURT.

The storm over South Africa's multi-billion rand arms deal showed no signs of abating on Wednesday, almost a week after a three-agency investigating team released its long-awaited report. The controversy took a new twist when vocal arms deal critic Terry Crawford-Browne applied to the Cape High Court in a bid to force government to scrap the entire deal. His application came only hours before Cabinet formally accepting the findings and recommendations in the report during its fortnightly meeting in Pretoria. "Government wishes once more to express its gratitude to the investigators for the professional manner in which they handled this matter," a Cabinet statement said. And Parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) -- which called for the multi-agency probe more than a year ago -- on Wednesday morning agreed to quiz the investigators on their report, unveiled in the National Assembly on November 15. The investigation found no "improper or unlawful conduct" by the government, and no grounds to suggest its contracting position was flawed. Auditor General Shauket Fakie, Public Protector Selby Baqwa and National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka will appear before the committee on December 5. But now the decision to buy arms, itself, has run into heavy weather. Acting "on behalf of poor South Africans", Crawford-Browne in court papers called for the deal to be declared null and void, and all related foreign loan agreements to be set aside. "The purpose of that would be to collapse the deal," he said as he filed the documents. The application is made by Crawford-Browne and the South African branch of the international NGO, Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR), which he chairs. The papers were to be served on President Thabo Mbeki and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, the first and second respondents respectively. Other respondents are the national government, National Assembly Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala, Baqwa, Ngcuka and Fakie. They have until January 3 to notify ECAAR's lawyers if they intend to oppose the application. Crawford-Brown argues that government acted irrationally and unconstitutionally by entering into the deal, and that Manuel had acted unlawfully when entering into the underlying loan agreements. He says there is no foreign military threat to the country and that issues of poverty demands priority over ...