Jacob Zuma begins jail term for contempt of court

South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma has been taken into custody to begin a jail term for contempt of the country’s highest court, ending a stand-off that challenged the rule of law in Africa’s most industrial nation.

Zuma was taken to jail late on Wednesday with minutes to spare before a midnight deadline to arrest him, South Africa’s police ministry said.

South Africa’s constitutional court sentenced Zuma to 15 months last week for defying its order to attend a judicial inquiry investigating claims he aided systematic corruption during his presidency, which ended in 2018.

The judgment was hailed as a victory for South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution but it became a test for the status of the rule of law under the governing African National Congress after Zuma continued to ignore the judges and allies threatened violent resistance to the order.

Zuma missed a Sunday deadline to turn himself in, which obliged the police to follow a court order to arrest him by the end of Wednesday, despite last-minute legal attempts by the former president to seek a reprieve.

His foundation on Wednesday said he “decided to comply with the incarceration order” and was “on his way to hand himself into a correctional services facility” in KwaZulu-Natal, his home province.

During his nine years in power, Zuma presided over the decay of major institutions and economic stagnation, culminating in the so-called “state capture” scandal of claims that he helped to loot public resources.

Zuma denies any wrongdoing.

Zuma’s jailing is a turning point for the ANC and for Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma’s successor as party leader and president, who has pledged to rebuild state institutions. 

Next week the constitutional court will hear an attempt by Zuma to rescind its sentence, while judgment is expected on Friday on a separate attempt to interdict the order in a lower court.

The 79-year-old had breathed defiance to the last. He said as late as Sunday that “sending me to jail during the height of a pandemic at my age is the same as sentencing me to death”, after a show of force at his rural homestead.

But by Wednesday these supporters had dwindled, and as South African television stations showed a motorcade sweeping out of the homestead just before midnight, none took up arms.