Sentenced in 2021 for courts outrage, the former Head of State had been released for medical reasons after only two months of incarceration.
Le Monde with AFP
Former South African President Jacob Zuma, sentenced in 2021 to firm prison but released for medical reasons after only two months of incarceration, asked the court on Monday, August 15, on Monday, August 15 to cancel him behind the bars. Jacob Zuma has been in parole since September.
Aged 80 years old, he was imprisoned in July 2021 after a conviction to fifteen months in prison for justice for justice. He had repeatedly refused to testify before a commission of inquiry into rampant corruption under his presidency (2009-2018). This ad hoc commission recently made an overwhelming report.
In December, justice canceled the parole granted to Mr. Zuma, saying that the head of the penitentiary services who had decided in this direction was not to do so.
During the hearing on appeal on Monday in Bloemfontein (center), to which Mr. Zuma was not present, the lawyers representing the prison services claimed to have followed a medical opinion.
Jacob Zuma suffers “from a terminal disease or a chronic and progressive condition” and a doctor recommended his parole due to an “incapacity”, underlined M e Maribolla Mphahlele, evoking a state of health which has “gradually deteriorated since 2018”, without giving more details.
Recalling to the court that two doctors had examined the former president, the latter’s lawyer, Dali Mpofu, questioned: “How is it that a court of justice (…) know better than the experts in Medicine? “During his stay in prison, Mr. Zuma had been hospitalized for surgery whose contours were not revealed.
Violent demonstrations and looting followed in July 2021 the imprisonment of Jacob Zuma. Also the sign of a tense social and economic climate, these violence affected the province of Kwazulu-Natal (east) before spreading to Johannesburg, killing more than 350 people and bearing the economy of the country. The decision has been deliberated and no date has been specified.