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Former South African President Jacob Zuma, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt, made another legal attempt on Tuesday to evade incarceration by going to court to request the suspension of a warrant for ‘stop.
His latest candidacy at the Pietermaritzburg High Court came as police said they would not do anything to arrest him until he completely exhausted his legal battle against sentencing.
Zuma mounted a final two-pronged attempt to avoid jail after the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest judicial authority, slapped him with the sentence last week.
He was told to surrender by midnight Sunday, otherwise the police would be tasked with arresting him within three days.
Zuma, 79, rushed to court on Friday to stop the execution of the arrest order.
His lawyer Dali Mpofu told the Pietermaritzburg High Court at the start of his session that he was “effectively” seeking to prohibit the execution of the arrest warrant against a man who will turn 80 on his next birthday and whose “state of health is unquestionably precarious”, is not a flight risk and is in the custody and security of the State.
“Unstable security situation”
Even before the hearing began, police lawyers wrote to the Constitutional Court saying they would stop on the order to arrest Zuma given the “unique situation presented by the developments and the legal matrix. involved ”.
Partisans, some armed, gathered in front of Zuma’s rural house in Nkandla. By Emmanuel Croset (AFP) Mpofu congratulated the police for having taken into account “the aggravated situation in the country surrounding this affair”, stressing the “unstable security situation which may be posed by this affair”.
The hearing continues on Tuesday.
Zuma separately asked the Constitutional Court to reconsider and overturn his imprisonment order. This challenge will be heard on July 12
He was sentenced to jail for disobeying a court order to appear before a commission investigating massive state corruption during his nine-year tenure.
His ruling African National Congress (ANC) has vowed not to interfere in Zuma’s attempt to escape prison because “we believe the judiciary should be left to make its own decisions.”
“The interests of an individual cannot override or compromise the interests of our democracy or the nation,” said party deputy general secretary Jesse Duarte after a special meeting of the National Executive Committee of the ANC held on Monday.
“We believe in letting the judiciary make its own decisions,” she said.
“Nobody wants jail”
In solidarity, hundreds of maskless supporters descended on Zuma’s rural home in Nkandla, southeast Kwa-Zulu Natal province, in blatant violation of Covid-19 restrictions that ban gatherings.
Zuma defiantly declared on Sunday that he was ready to go to jail, even if “to send me to jail at the height of a pandemic, at my age, is to sentence me to death.”
A veteran against the white minority government in South Africa who spent 10 years in prison on Robben Island, Zuma compared the country’s justice system to “apartheid-like rule”.
“I am facing long detention without trial,” he said.
The Zuma affair has fueled tensions within the ruling party, where the former president still enjoys broad grassroots support.
The ANC condemned the crowd gathered in Nkandla on Monday as a “deliberate defiance of the Covid-19 restrictions” but said it understood why Zuma was exploring all possible channels.
“No one wants to go to jail … I think (ex) President Zuma is exploring all available legal avenues to reduce or remove the custodial sentence imposed on him,” Duarte said.
“We hope that Comrade Zuma’s lawsuit will be accepted,” she added.
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