After a day of high drama at Nkandla, the homestead of former president Jacob Zuma, the police would prepare to implement the order of the Constitutional Court to arrest the former head of state, a police ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.
Zuma was ordered by the court to hand himself over for arrest on Sunday. Failing that the court ordered that he be arrested within three days of the deadline. Amid crowds of cheering supporters brandishing traditional Zulu weapons, and some with handguns, Zuma delivered a defiant address and said he “would sleep at home”.
He later told journalists that there was no need to hand himself over, because the Constitutional Court had agreed to engage with him afresh.
There has been confusion since Friday when the Constitutional Court agreed to hear a rescission application over whether the arrest order stood. Zuma has approached the high court to interdict his arrest, with legal experts divided on the implications.
According to the police’s threat analysis and legal opinion, Zuma “must” be arrested by Wednesday in line with the order issued by the Constitutional Court last Tuesday. The apex court sentenced Zuma to one year and three months behind bars for defying its order that he testify at the state capture inquiry.
The Pietermaritzburg high court will hear Zuma’s application to interdict his arrest on Tuesday. The Constitutional Court will hear the rescission application on July 12.
Police minister Bheki Cele’s spokesperson, Lirandzu Themba, said on Sunday that the “police will comply” with the court’s order that Cele “must” take steps to ensure its order is enacted if Zuma fails to report to a police station by Sunday for immediate commencement of his prison sentence. Failure to do so would render Cele and national police commissioner Khehla Sithole in contempt of the Constitutional Court order.
Highly placed sources in state security agencies have indicated this is the advice government received, thus police are compelled to act unless instructed otherwise by the courts.
In a media statement, the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure said on Sunday that security agencies had “further enhanced operational capacity in KwaZulu-Natal in response to incidents in which people had contravened the disaster regulations, under which all gatherings are banned”.
On Sunday afternoon, the state attorney confirmed papers had been served on Zuma’s legal team in connection with the interdict sought in the Pietermaritzburg high court.
Zuma repeated in Zulu an assertion that he refused to testify at the state capture inquiry because the chair, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, would not recuse himself for bias. Zuma further leveraged the opportunity to say Zondo and the secretary of the commission have opposed Zuma’s application and want him in jail for contempt. The other state parties — including Cele and President Cyril Ramaphosa — have undertaken to comply with the court’s decision.
The matter will be heard on an urgent basis on Tuesday and it’s understood police are unlikely to act before then.
Speaking during a media briefing on Sunday night, Zuma said he had initially intended on surrendering but had changed his mind after consulting with his family and comrades. He said he had been convinced that sending him to jail at his age in the middle of a pandemic “would be the equivalent of a death sentence.
FULL ADDRESS | Zuma speaks in Nkandla after meeting with lawyers
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“I am not scared of going to jail for my beliefs. I will be a prisoner of conscience. However, I have a duty and obligation to ensure that the dignity and respect for our judiciary is not compromised by a sentence that reminds our people of apartheid days. It is a travesty of justice.”
After a meeting with a delegation from the ANC earlier on Sunday, the former president made his first public address in person this week.
Speaking to supporters, some of them members of the Zulu regiments, or amabutho, and flanked by suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule and NEC member Tony Yengeni, Zuma contradicted his own rescission application. He said he did not deliberately stage a walkout at the Zondo commission, but left proceedings because the dates coincided with his medical examinations.
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