Former president Jacob Zuma spent his first night behind bars at the Kokstad Correctional Services Centre after handing himself over to police at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, following a dramatic three-day stand-off at his home in Nkandla.
Zuma, who faces a 15-month sentence for contempt of court for failing to abide by an order to testify at the state capture commission, was ordered to hand himself over by Sunday or face arrest. The police had until midnight on Wednesday to execute the arrest.
At about 11.30pm Zuma’s motorcade left Nkandla believed to be heading for Estcourt, but this was not confirmed. His daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudla tweeted shortly before midnight: “Comrades we celebrate the imprisonment of the freedom fighter @PresJGZuma.”
The Zuma Foundation advised that “President Zuma has decided to comply with his incarceration order.”
Zuma’s surrender brings to an end eight days of high tension in SA following the Constitutional Court’s judgment last Tuesday, during which there was much anxiety over whether police would comply with the arrest order and during which Zuma supporters threatened violence.
Despite weeks of war talk by Zuma and his family, who insisted they would not allow him to be arrested, in the end supporters made a poor showing on the day of the arrest, perhaps unaware that it would take place. Zuma himself and his family had been convinced that their legal initiatives last week meant that he would not be arrested.
KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi led the operation, which in the end did not require the use of force by police.
It is unclear where Zuma will serve his sentence but he is expected to be held in either a single cell or be kept in the medical ward, according to sources.
Police minister Bheki Cele travelled to KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday to maintain oversight throughout the day. Cele would have found himself in the dock on a charge of contempt had he defied the court order to ensure Zuma’s arrest by Wednesday at midnight.
Both Edward, his son, and the former president were convinced that the rescission application to the Constitutional Court and the urgent interdict application to stay his arrest meant the warrant was suspended pending the outcome in those cases.
As a result, Zuma did not have time for mass mobilisation. Efforts to mobilise support were also thwarted by police, who closed arterial roads to Zuma’s home. Police were on high alert for “flash points” in the wake of Zuma’s arrest.
Dear South Africans and the World.
— JGZuma Foundation (Official) (@JGZ_Foundation) July 7, 2021
Please be advised that President Zuma has decided to comply with the incarceration order.
He is on his way to hand himself into a Correctional Services Facility in KZN.
A full statement will be issued in due course.#WenzenuZuma
His arrest will amount to a hugely significant moment in SA’s constitutional democracy, with the supremacy of the rule of law and the authority of the apex court affirmed by the police and the ruling party.
Zuma is also criminally accused in the ongoing arms deal trial over alleged kickbacks he received from defence suppliers. He is also the subject of serious allegations, including fraud and corruption, made in testimony by witnesses under oath at the state capture inquiry.
Zuma is notorious for his Stalingrad approach to litigation. For more than 20 years he has, at the state’s expense, pursued countless legal strategies to evade prosecution.
On Wednesday, his lawyers were working frenetically into the final hours of the day in another effort to fend off jail time. As well as the 11th-hour letter to the Constitutional Court, Zuma’s close associates said that lawyers had been instructed to apply for bail as soon as he was arrested, a strategy they believed possible due to his pending rescission application. Legal commentators were doubtful that this option was available to him as he was not appealing his sentence.
“There is prejudice to the life of our client in the event of the judgment of the high court ordering a suspension of the committal orders, alternatively the Constitutional Court rescinding its orders,” read the letter.
Zuma, 79, suggested during a press conference on Sunday that the court should have taken his age and health into consideration when handing down its sanction.
On Wednesday, the governing ANC closed the net on Zuma loyalists who had rallied against the party’s leadership and in support of Zuma’s defiance campaign. The ANC announced the suspension of Carl Niehaus for supporting Zuma outside Nkandla in contravention of Covid-19 regulations. Niehaus is a Zuma champion and spokesperson of the disbanded Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA).
The party has distanced itself from the actions of its former leader and struggle veteran, calling on its members to uphold the rule of law and support the independence of the judiciary. Zuma is the first democratically elected president to be put behind bars, something that ANC “had never imagined”, said to party spokesperson Pule Mabe.
“But law enforcement agencies are independent from the ANC and [the party] will never want to be seen to be interfering with the work that they are doing,” Mabe said at a briefing on Wednesday.
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