Cape Town — According to the Mail and Guardian, the Department of Correctional Services will, over the course of the next week, determine whether former president Jacob Zuma will return to prison.

"The department of correctional services is able to confirm that it has received representations from relevant parties on the incarceration term for the former president, Mr Jacob Zuma ... Commissioner Thobakgale is to make his decision on or before 10 August 2023 and it will be communicated publicly," the department said.

Despite a high court decision which ruled that Zuma must serve the remainder of his sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal elected to let the current commissioner determine the best course of action. This comes in the wake of the high court ruling which found that former prisons commissioner Arthur Fraser broke the law in when he authorised Zuma's release from prison two months into a 15-month sentence.

Zuma recently returned to South Africa after travelling to Russia for medical treatment for the past week. Zuma was initially imprisoned in July 2021 for refusing to obey a court order to appear before a commission of inquiry into the government and private sector corruption which flourished during his presidency. He was admitted to an outside hospital for medical observation.

Zuma's jailing triggered widespread violence in two of South Africa's provinces. Looters vandalised shopping malls, other retail outlets, businesses, factories and infrastructure with over 1,000 people arrested as a result.