South Africa’s high court has ordered the former president Jacob Zuma to return to jail after setting aside a decision to release him on medical parole.
Zuma, 79, is serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court after he ignored instructions to participate in a corruption inquiry. He began medical parole in September, and in the same month, South Africa’s top court, the constitutional court, dismissed his attempt to overturn the sentence.
The legal processes against him for alleged corruption during his nine-year reign are widely viewed as a test of post-apartheid South Africa’s ability to enforce the rule of law, in particular against powerful, well-connected people.
Zuma handed himself in on 7 July to begin his prison sentence, triggering the worst violence South Africa had seen in years as his supporters took to the streets. The protests widened into looting and an outpouring of anger over the hardship and inequality that persist in South Africa 27 years after the end of apartheid. More than 300 people were killed and thousands of businesses were pillaged and destroyed.
Zuma’s legal team is appealing against the latest court ruling, his foundation said. “The judgment is clearly wrong & there are strong prospects that a higher court will come to a totally different conclusion,” the foundation wrote on Twitter.
The Department of Correctional Services said that it was studying the judgment and would make any announcement later.
Zuma’s presidency, from 2009-2018, was marred by widespread allegations of graft and wrongdoing, and he faces a separate corruption trial linked to his dismissal as deputy president in 2005, when he was implicated in a $2bn government arms deal.
That trial, which has been held up for many years, on multiple charges including corruption, racketeering and money laundering, is expected to continue in 2022.
He denies wrongdoing in all cases and says he is the victim of a political witch-hunt meant to marginalise his faction in the ruling African National Congress. The party said only that it had received the judgment.
