In the latest twist in the 81-year-old’s contempt of court sentence, South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma reported back to prison on Friday only to be quickly freed.
Zuma was summoned to prison and arrived at 6:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) at a correctional facility in the eastern town of Estcourt, where he was “admitted into the system,” according to the prison service.
According to Correctional Services national commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale, he was released in little over an hour as part of a “remission process” aimed at addressing prison overpopulation.
“Upon admission into the system he was subjected to administrative processes… He was then released,” Thobakgale told a press conference in Pretoria.
Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison in June 2021 for refusing to testify before a commission investigating financial wrongdoing and cronyism during his administration, but was released on medical parole barely two months later.
He started serving his term early in July 2021.
His incarceration provoked protests that turned into riots and looting, killing over 350 people in the country’s worst bloodshed since democracy was established.
He was brought to the hospital the following month for an unexplained condition before being granted medical release.
In November of last year, an appeals court ruled that Zuma’s parole was unconstitutional and returned him to the Estcourt Correctional Centre in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal state.
South Africa’s prison service, which had given Zuma conditional parole, appealed the ruling, but the Constitutional Court rejected the move last month.
Thobakgale said the ex-president was ordered to return to jail on Friday in compliance with the ruling.
However, Zuma profited immediately from a remission of non-violent criminals allowed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, according to Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.
According to Lamola, the process will result in the release of almost 24,000 inmates, roughly two-thirds of whom are under correctional monitoring and parole.
The move “will alleviate overcrowding” which “poses a direct threat to inmate health, security, and management, and it could lead to a surge in gangsterism,” the minister said.
Zuma’s foundation spokesman Mzwanele Manyi said the ex-president was “at home” and speaking with his legal team.
Zuma was president from 2009 to 2018, when he was driven out due to graft charges.
He is facing other charges of corruption in an armaments procurement scandal dating back to the late 1990s, when he was vice president, in addition to his 2021 contempt of court sentence.