South Africa’s high court has ordered the former president Jacob Zuma to return to jail after setting aside a decision to release him on medical parole. Zuma, 79, is serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court after he ignored instructions to participate in a corruption inquiry. He began medical parole in September, and in the same month, South Africa’s top court, the constitutional court, dismissed his attempt to overturn the sentence. Zuma handed himself in on 7 July to begin his prison sentence, triggering the worst violence South Africa had seen in years as his supporters took to the streets. The protests widened into looting and an outpouring of anger over the hardship and inequality that persist in South Africa 27 years after the end of apartheid. More than 300 people were killed and thousands of businesses were pillaged and destroyed. The legal processes against him for alleged corruption during his nine-year reign are widely viewed as a test of post-apartheid South Africa’s ability to enforce the rule of law, in particular against powerful, well-connected people.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN