Jacob Zuma therefore returned to prison… for the space of an hour. Accustomed to judicial acrobatics, the former South African president will not even have had to contort himself this time to escape detention. In accordance with a court ruling declaring his conditional release illegal in September 2021, the former president showed up at Estcourt prison in KwaZulu-Natal province on Friday, August 11. Theoretically, he should have served the remainder of a fifteen-month prison sentence there for contempt. In the process, he was released thanks to a collective remission announced to everyone’s surprise.
The 81-year-old former South African president did not receive any preferential treatment, South African authorities tried to convince during a schizophrenic press conference announcing the measure on August 11. Quite the contrary, hammered the Minister of Justice and the director of penitentiary services, “justice has taken its course with regard to Jacob Zuma”remanded to prison pursuant to a decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Officially, it is therefore a simple coincidence that the implementation of a collective remission of sentence signed by the hand of the Head of State, Cyril Ramaphosa, was published in the official journal the same day of the return to prison. of the former president, making Jacob Zuma one of the very first beneficiaries of this measure aimed at combating prison overcrowding. “The President’s decision to reduce the sentences of offenders across the country does not particularly concern former President Jacob Zuma”insisted the Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, stressing Cyril Ramaphosa’s attachment to respect for the constitution.
” Finally free “, for his part, jubilant, hilarious, the former South African president in a short video posted on an account X (ex-Twitter) – of his daughter, Duduzile Zuma, after the announcement. In fact, the remission of Jacob Zuma comes to close two years of legal saga after his conviction, at the end of June 2021, to fifteen months in prison for having refused to testify before a commission of inquiry into massive corruption which has characterized his mandate.
Old friend
On July 8, 2021, the former president was imprisoned after a tense face-to-face lasting several days with the police. The country, which had grown accustomed to seeing Jacob Zuma escape justice by all means, does not believe its eyes. But amazement quickly gave way to dread: his arrest was followed by looting and attacks which marked the start of a week of riots considered the worst since the end of apartheid. The events, whose outbreak then seems strangely coordinated across several provinces of the country, will cause more than 300 deaths. President Cyril Ramaphosa discusses attack “deliberate” And “organized” against South African democracy.
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