Jacob Zuma starts jail for contempt in court

Former South African President Jacob Zuma has been arrested for initiating a prison sentence for contempt of the country’s highest court, ending a confrontation that challenged the rule of law in Africa’s most industrialized nation.

Zuma was taken to jail on Wednesday afternoon, just minutes before the deadline to arrest him, the South African police ministry said.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa sentenced Zuma to 15 months last week to challenge his order to attend a judicial investigation into allegations that he helped systematic corruption during his presidency, which ended in 2018.

The trial was hailed as a victory for South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution, but became a test of the rule of law under the rule of the African National Congress after Zuma continued to ignore judges and allies. threatened violent resistance to order.

Zuma missed Sunday’s deadline to surrender, which forced the police to follow a court order to arrest him in late Wednesday, despite last-minute legal attempts by the former president to seek redress.

On Wednesday, his foundation said it “decided to comply with the jail order” and that it was “on its way to surrendering to a correctional services center” in KwaZulu-Natal, his home province.

During his nine years in power, Zuma presided over the decline of institutions and economic stagnation, which culminated in the so-called state capture scandal and claimed to have helped plunder public resources.

Zuma denies any foul.

His imprisonment was a turning point for the ANC and for Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma’s successor as party leader and president, who has pledged to rebuild state institutions.

Next week, the constitutional court will hear Zuma’s challenge to rescind the sentence, while a sentence on a separate attempt to ban the order in a lower court is expected on Friday.

The 79-year-old had breathed defiantly to the last. He said as late as Sunday that “sending me to prison during the full age of a pandemic at my age is the same as sentencing me to death,” after a show of strength on his rural estate.

But by Wednesday, those supporters had dwindled and as South African television showed a caravan leaving the estate shortly before midnight, none took up arms.