{"id":48880,"date":"2021-07-08T10:47:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T07:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kfm.co.ug\/?p=48880"},"modified":"2021-07-08T10:47:41","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T07:47:41","slug":"south-africas-ex-president-zuma-spends-first-night-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/south-africas-ex-president-zuma-spends-first-night-in-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s ex-president Zuma spends first night in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
By AFP<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n

Former president Jacob Zuma turned himself into prison early Thursday to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of the country’s highest court, officials said.<\/p>\n

Prison authorities confirmed that Zuma “has been admitted to start serving a 15 months sentence at Estcourt Correctional Centre” in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n

It is the first time a former president has been jailed in post-apartheid South\u00a0Africa.<\/p>\n

His turning himself in after days of refusing to do so brought an end to an impasse that had gripped the country, which is also battling a brutal third wave of Covid-19.<\/p>\n

The sentence handed to Zuma by the Constitutional Court last week for snubbing anti-graft investigators also set a benchmark for the continent, by jailing a former head of state for refusing to respond to a corruption probe.<\/p>\n

Police had earlier on Wednesday warned they were prepared to arrest Zuma by a midnight deadline to enforce the ruling, unless the top court instructed otherwise.<\/p>\n

But in the end the former leader decided to make his own way to prison.<\/p>\n

Just minutes before the deadline expired, his foundation tweeted that Zuma had “decided to comply with the incarceration order” and hand himself to a correctional facility.<\/p>\n

A convoy of cars believed to be carrying Zuma drove out of his homestead at high speed about 40 minutes before the cut-off time.<\/p>\n

Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudla tweeted that he was “still in high spirits” and that “he said that he hopes they still have his same overalls from Robben Island… We salute dad!”<\/p>\n

Corruption scandals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zuma had mounted a last-ditch legal defence and refused to turn himself in.<\/p>\n

He had pleaded with the court for an 11th-hour reprieve, requesting that it suspend its arrest orders until all legal processes were finalised — under the ruling, police were given three days to arrest him if he failed to surrender.<\/p>\n

Zuma’s first application to halt his arrest was heard on Tuesday but the judgement was reserved until Friday.<\/p>\n

Separately, he has pleaded with the Constitutional Court to reconsider and rescind its jail order.<\/p>\n

That challenge will be heard next Monday.<\/p>\n

Zuma, 79, was forced out of office in 2018 and replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa after a nine-year tenure stained by corruption scandals and the taint of cronyism.<\/p>\n

Critics nicknamed him the “Teflon president” for his perceived ability to sidestep justice.<\/p>\n

But his fortunes changed on June 29 when the court issued its damning judgement against him for contempt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By AFP Former president Jacob Zuma turned himself into prison early Thursday to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of the country’s highest court, officials said. Prison authorities confirmed that Zuma “has been admitted to start serving a 15 months sentence at Estcourt Correctional Centre” in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. It is the first time a former president has been jailed in post-apartheid South\u00a0Africa. His turning himself in after days of refusing to do so brought an end to an impasse that had gripped the country, which is also battling a brutal third wave of Covid-19. The sentence handed to Zuma by the Constitutional Court last week for snubbing anti-graft investigators also set a benchmark for the continent, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":48881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,132],"tags":[233,232],"class_list":["post-48880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world-news","tag-jacob-zuma","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}