Harare — Former president Jacob Zuma is seeking medical treatment in Russia, Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi confirmed, barely a day after the Constitutional Court ruling that he should return to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Zuma, 81, received a 15-month jail term in 2021 for disobeying a court order to testify at a hearing looking into high-level corruption during his nine years in office, which ended in 2018.
He turned himself in to the authorities in July 2021, but was freed on medical parole two months later.
In 2022, the Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that it was "unlawful" to release Zuma on early medical parole and that he should go back to jail to serve out the remainder of his term for contempt of court.
The commissioner's office then appealed the decision to the Constitutional Court. However, the application was turned down on July 13.
Zuma's jailing in 2021 triggered violence in two of South Africa's provinces - KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Looters vandalised shopping malls, other retail outlets, businesses, factories and infrastructure with over 1,000 people arrested as a result.
