Schabir Shaik cuts a lonely figure sitting in the gazebo of his Morningside mansion. The man who once strode through boardrooms connecting with the moneyed elite of politics has been cut loose by most of his old friends.
He is estranged from his wife Zulheikha and gets to see his son, Yasir, aged three, once a week: for two hours on Sunday.
Shaik is angry and depressed. A close friend this week told The Tribune that 53-year-old Shaik snapped last week when Rapport photographers caught him shopping in Florida Road.
After repeated sightings of Shaik in public, including on the Papwa Sewgolum golf course, prison authorities curtailed his parole conditions and warned he could go back to prison if he didn't play ball.
Now Shaik won't be able to run errands up and down Florida Road in his new X6 BMW. Instead he will have to spend more time tending to the fish in his koi pond, or swimming laps in the pool of his house with panoramic views of Durban.
Shaik doesn't elicit sympathy in certain quarters, not least among members of the parliamentary opposition who believe the man is a confirmed liar and a cheat whose medical parole makes a mockery of the justice system.
A high court judge ruled that he bribed President Jacob Zuma with R4 million in "loans" to improve his business prospects. Numerous courts have upheld this ruling in spite of Shaik's exhaustive attempts to appeal against his conviction.
Within weeks of being sent to prison to serve his 15-year sentence for corruption and fraud, Shaik became ill with high blood pressure, depression and chest pains.
After spending two years and seven months of his sentence mostly in hospital, he was released on medical parole and returned to his Innes Road home on a stretcher.
His medical reports, which found their way into the public domain, said his kidneys were shutting down and he was losing his eyesight.
At the time of his parole a spokesman for the Department of Correctional Services said Shaik would have to be "in the final stages of a terminal illness" to qualify for medical parole.
Spokesman Manelisi Wolela told SABC radio that the Correctional Services Act was "very clear" on medical parole rules.
"It talks about people who are in the final stages of their terminal illness - but that determination is not done by department officials; it is done by doctors who submit their reports to the parole board, which then makes a decision," said Wolela.
This week a close friend of Shaik's spoke at length to The Tribune about Zuma's former financial adviser. "Schabir has never said he is terminally ill. At Albert Luthuli Hospital the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for him, but the prison authorities didn't want the responsibility of keeping him in prison. Two doctors unknown to him gave an independent assessment of his condition and he was sent home.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that he has got much better at home. He doesn't have the stress of prison. It is a world apart. He is nurtured by his friends and even though he is estranged from Zulheikha, he gets to see Yasir."
Shaik's friend said his son was the focus of his life. "Yasir has just started to call him 'dad'. His world revolves around that boy."
But Shaik's friend said the fraudster felt abandoned by his old friends.
"He hasn't had a phone call or even an SMS from any of them since he has been paroled. They have ostracised him. He paid their bills and served his purpose. Schabir is angry about that.
"Some people might say he is a liar and a cheat. They can say what they like. I think he's a great guy. He has his faults; he can be arrogant and egotistical and he has a short fuse, but he is also a warm and intelligent person.
"He's a sociable human being and he needs to be with people. He's obviously much happier at home than in prison, but he needs interaction. When that photographer got him last week, he just snapped.
"Like Zuma, he believes he was the victim of a political conspiracy.
"He is in turmoil. He's not dying. He's getting better, he wants to live and he's hoping for a presidential pardon.
"But he doesn't know when it will happen - or if it will happen.
"And he's supposed to be 'terminally ill' because the bureaucrats in the Department of Correctional Services don't have a category for prisoners who recover when they are released on medical parole."
According to earlier reports, the department said the law made no provision for the re-incarceration of parolees who recovered. However, there is divergent opinion on this.
According to a report earlier this year, an audit by the department revealed 36 percent of parolees released on medical grounds did not die within 12 months of being paroled.
Shaik's friend said, "Schabir also knows that the DA wants blood. They want to be able to say he got off because he is friends with Zuma. I can understand that, but it is simplistic. If only people knew: he doesn't have many friends anymore.
"Schabir is alone and he has to fight for his future. Some people just won't accept that one day he will be a free man and he deserves to be.
"He didn't murder or rape anyone. The minimum sentence for fraud is 15 years. For what he did, that wasn't fair.
"The irony is that he didn't make any money from the arms deal. He made his money in empowerment deals before the arms deal.
"Whatever money he made, he made legally, so you can't hold it against him that he's better off than other prisoners or parolees."
The friend said Schabir was lonely. "He sits in his gazebo every day, mostly dressed in a vest and shorts. He talks to staff and friends who visit. The rest of the time he swims, reads or sleeps."
