Court orders Jacob Zuma to go back and finish his 15-month contempt prison term

The country’s Constitutional Court jailed him for contempt in July this year for failing to cooperate with a corruption trial relating to a 1999 purchase of arms from five European firms.

Zuma who was then the Deputy President has been accused of taking bribes from French defence giant Thales, an offence for which he has been slapped with 16 charges of fraud, corruption and racketeering.

He has denied the charges proffered against him, saying his trial is politically motivated.

In a ruling on Wednesday, December 15, Judge Elias Matojane said the medical parole granted to the 79-year-old ex-president is “declared unlawful and set aside”.

While the Department of Correctional Services said it was studying the court’s ruling to decide on the way forward, Zuma’s legal team has vowed to appeal the ruling.

“The legal team of HE Prez Zuma has just delivered his application for leave to appeal in terms of section 17 of the Superior Courts Act on the grounds that the judgment is clearly wrong & there are strong prospects that a higher court will come to a totally different conclusion,” his charitable foundation, JGZuma Foundation wrote on its official Twitter page.

Before this latest court ruling, Zuma has launched a book a few days ago that he claimed was “to set the record straight”.

He added: “There is no use to create stories because you have a powerful machinery to do so.”

He said the book is meant to expose the “untruth about the work that we have done” and let South Africa and the world “know what has happened”

Source: Pulse news