South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on Monday (21) that the decision to release Jacob Zuma on medical grounds was illegal and ruled that the former president must go back to prison to serve his sentence for contempt of justice.
Zuma was sentenced last year to 15 months in prison after ignoring a court order to testify in an inquiry investigating widespread corruption during his nine years as president. His management ended in 2018, when Cyril Ramaphosa replaced him, on an anti-corruption ticket.
The South African politician turned himself in to authorities in July last year, sparking a wave of looting and violence in which at least 337 people were killed. He was released on parole two months later.
In December last year, a higher court overturned the parole decision and ordered Zuma back in prison, but he appealed and has so far been free.
According to the Supreme Court ruling on Monday, the decision to release Zuma against the recommendation of the Medical Probation Advisory Board was illegal.
The court also rejected a decision by the department of correctional services, taken in October this year, which attested that Zuma’s prison sentence had ended while he waited for his appeal to be heard.
“Mr Zuma legally has not finished serving his sentence. He must return to Estcourt correctional center to do so,” reads the sentence.
A spokesperson for the Jacob Zuma Foundation said the foundation would send a comment to Reuters within an hour, but did not. On Sunday, before the court ruled, foundation spokesman Mzwanele Manyi said the trial had nothing to do with Zuma.
“We think he served the 15 months he was supposed to serve and, more importantly, it was not President Zuma who applied for medical parole. It was the government itself, the department of correctional services initiated the process and they got it,” he said.
allegations of corruption
The legal cases against Zuma are seen as a test of the ability of the post-apartheid South African justice system to enforce the rule of law, especially when the investigations involve mainstream politicians and government-related businesspeople.
Zuma’s two-term presidency, from 2009 to 2018, was marred by widespread allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. One concerns the so-called “Zondo commission”, a case in which allegations of bribery involving three Indian tycoons – brothers Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta – are being examined.
In another lawsuit, he faces 16 counts of fraud, corruption and organized crime related to the purchase of military equipment from five European companies in 1999, when he was vice president. According to the allegations, he would have pocketed more than 4 million rand (about R$ 1.4 million, at current prices) in bribes paid by the French company Thales.
The former president denies irregularities in all cases and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt aimed at marginalizing his influence within the South African legislature.
Zuma, one of the leaders of the struggle to end apartheid alongside Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), was South Africa’s most controversial president since the end of the segregation regime in 1994. He was ousted from the Presidency in 2018, when he resigned, in an action orchestrated by allies of his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, the current leader of South Africa.
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