South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma has been sentenced to 15 months by the highest court in the country.
The jail sentence comes after the Constitutional Court found him guilty of contempt for defying its order to appear at an inquiry into corruption while he was president.
Mr Zuma’s time in power, which ended in 2018, was dogged by graft allegations.
Businessmen were accused of conspiring with politicians to influence the decision-making process.
The court ordered that Zuma be sentenced to a 15-month jail term. “The only appropriate sanction is a direct unsuspended order of imprisonment,” Khampepe said.
The court was handing down judgment in the application by the commission of inquiry into state capture that Zuma be held in contempt of court for failing to comply with the court’s earlier order in January to obey the commission’s summons to appear and give evidence from February 15 to 19.
Zuma did not honour that summons. After Zuma’s failure to appear, the commission launched contempt proceedings in the Constitutional Court.
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The commission also sought an order that Zuma be sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for contempt. The judgment comes three months after the court heard the unopposed application by the commission.
In April, before the hearing of the contempt application, the court issued directions that Zuma must file an affidavit addressing what penalty the court should impose if it were to find him in contempt of court.
Zuma did not oppose these contempt of court proceedings and did not participate in the matter.
Instead he wrote to chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng saying he would not participate as a conscientious objection.
Acting Chief Justice Sisi Khampepe was damning in her ruling. Mr Zuma refused to come to the court to explain his actions, she said, and “[he] elected instead to make provocative, unmeritorious and vituperative statements that constituted a calculated effort to impugn the integrity of the judiciary.
“I am left with no option but to commit Mr Zuma to imprisonment, with the hope that doing so sends an unequivocal message… the rule of law and the administration of justice prevails.”
In a separate legal matter, Mr Zuma pleaded not guilty last month in his corruption trial involving a $5bn (£3bn) arms deal from the 1990s.
©ControlTV2021.
