In the latest development in the legal dispute surrounding his contempt of court conviction, the government of South Africa announced that former president Jacob Zuma reported back to jail on Friday only to be quickly freed.
Zuma was instructed to return to prison, and upon his arrival at a detention facility in Estcourt, northwest of Durban, at 6am local time, he was “admitted into the system,” according to the prison service.
But as part of a “remission process” intended to reduce jail overcrowding, he was almost immediately released, Correctional Services national commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale said at a press conference in Pretoria.
“Upon admission into the system he was subjected to administrative processes …He was then released,” Thobakgale said.
Zuma was sentenced in June 2021 after refusing to testify before a panel probing financial sleaze and cronyism under his presidency — but was freed on medical parole just two months into his term.
He started serving the sentence early in July 2021.
The worst violence to strike the nation since the inception of democracy in South Africa was ignited by his imprisonment and resulted in protests that turned into riots and looting that left more than 350 people dead.
He was hospitalized for an unidentified condition the following month before being given medical parole.
The now 81-year-old was sent back to the Estcourt Correctional Centre in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal state in November of last year after an appeals court determined that the release had been improperly granted.
The ruling was appealed by the South African prison service, which had approved Zuma’s conditional parole, but the Constitutional Court last month rejected the request.
