Former President of South Africa in the person of Jacob Zuma has been hit with a 15 months jai! sentenced for defying a court order to appear before an inquiry probing wide-ranging allegations of corruption during his tenure of office as the president.
Zuma who was the President of South Africa was not in court on Tuesday after he was found guilty of contempt, and the court has now order to hand himself over within five days to a police station in his hometown of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal province or in Johannesburg.
His sentence is the first in South African’s history that a former president is to serve a jail sentence.
The South African Constitutional Court ruled that Jacob Zuma defied an order by refusing to cooperate with the commission of inquiry, which is chaired by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo.
“Mr Zuma was served with the order and it is impossible to conclude anything other than that he was unequivocally aware of what it required of him.”
She said the court found it impossible to conclude Zuma would comply with any order other than a prison sentence.”
Mr Zuma has repeatedly reiterated that he would rather be imprisoned than to cooperate with the commission or comply with the order made,” she said.
Zuma has previously expressed his unwillingness to appear before the inquiry, which has so far heard evidence directly implicating him in wrongdoing.In a previous 21-page letter written to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, which the court has described as “scandalous”, Zuma claimed he was ready to be sent to prison.
