WATCH | Zondo blasts Zuma’s ‘coincidental’ parole — ‘the law was mocked’

Zuma

Cape Town – Former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has questioned the legitimacy of former president Jacob Zuma’s release from prison on medical parole after defying a Constitutional Court order in 2021.

Speaking at the 15th Commonwealth Regional Anti-Corruption Conference in Cape Town, Zondo commended the judiciary for upholding the rule of law by sentencing Zuma and declaring his early release unlawful.

“I’ve already mentioned the SIU (Special Investigating Unit), but I think I deserve to mention the Judiciary, because it is the Judiciary that issued the Nkandla judgment that, in the view of many, turned the tide,” Zondo said.

Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in July 2021 for refusing to appear before the State Capture Commission, which Zondo chaired.

He served only two months before being released by then Correctional Services Commissioner Arthur Fraser.

Courts later found the parole unlawful and ordered Zuma back to prison, but he was released after two hours under a general remission programme aimed at easing overcrowding.

Zondo criticised the executive’s narrative that Zuma’s release was coincidental and part of a broader remission plan.

“It is the judiciary that sent out a very good message that, whether you are president or a former president, if you have done wrong, we will send you to jail. It is the Judiciary that made sure that when some irregularities were done to release former president from prison, it is the Judiciary which declared that that release was unlawful.

“But it was the executive which wanted us to believe that coincidentally, when he came back, there was this plan that certain prisoners should be released, and he just fitted into that plan. Some of us did not believe that,” Zondo said.

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