South Africa’s highest court has today ordered the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma, for 15 months on contempt charges.
This is after he defied an order to appear before a corruption inquiry examining the breathtaking financial scandals that tainted his tenure as the country’s leader from 2009 to 2018.
The move to detain Zuma, a comrade of Nelson Mandela and one of the dominant figures in the governing African National Congress party since apartheid ended in 1994, was a notable development in the legacy of corruption that shadowed his years in power.
Zuma was not in court on Tuesday, and he was not immediately taken into custody.
The decision by the Constitutional Court to have Zuma arrested came five months after that same body ordered him to appear before the corruption inquiry, led by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
But Zuma brazenly defied the court. Not only did he fail to show up to testify before the inquiry, but he also ignored the high court’s contempt proceedings, declining to so much as mount a defense.
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