Former South African president Jacob Zuma was taken into custody and released from the Estcourt Correctional Center in less than two hours.
Zuma’s release, according to the national commissioner of Correctional Services, was a component of a campaign to reduce jail congestion.
Friday, August 11, as pressure from the opposition grew, officials and correctional services stood by their choice.
“With relation to the former president Zuma, the legal process has concluded. The national commissioner made a decision, and neither we nor anyone else tampered with it, the minister of justice and correctional services informed the press.
According to Minister Lamola, the former leader was given a pardon for non-violent offenders that President Ramaphosa had approved.
9,500 prisoners will be freed.
According to Makhothi Thobakgale, commissioner of correctional services, about 9,500 prisoners would be freed from custody and placed under supervision under the remissions procedure ordered by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Zuma was sent back to prison after the Supreme Court of Appeal affirmed a Gauteng High Court judgement that his release on medical parole in 2021 was illegal and unconstitutional.
The choice of whether Zuma should go back to jail or have his time on medical parole count as time served was left up to Thobakgale, according to the court.
For refusing to comply with a Constitutional Court order to appear before a committee of inquiry looking into charges of corruption during his term as president from 2009 to 2018, Zuma was sentenced to prison in 2021.
Two months into his 15-month term, he was granted medical parole and released.
Then, Zuma’s release on medical parole was approved by Arthur Fraser, commissioner of correctional services and a well-known supporter of the former president.
The Jacob Zuma Foundation has contended that because Zuma was on medical parole and under guardianship, he fulfilled his entire term.
Last year, the Department of Correctional Services announced that Zuma had completed his sentence and been released from its custody.
His imprisonment had prompted bloody rioting and property devastation in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, which includes the commercial center of Johannesburg.
354 individuals lost their lives in the ensuing mayhem as police struggled, according to official government statistics.
to stop the violence and destruction from spreading.
Zuma was sent back to prison after the Supreme Court of Appeal affirmed a Gauteng High Court judgement that his release on medical parole in 2021 was illegal and unconstitutional.
The choice of whether Zuma should go back to jail or have his time on medical parole count as time served was left up to Thobakgale, according to the court.
The Jacob Zuma Foundation has contended that because Zuma was on medical parole and under guardianship, he fulfilled his entire term.
Last year, the Department of Correctional Services announced that Zuma had completed his sentence and been released from its custody.
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