Former South African President Jacob Zuma, on Sunday, July 4, announced to hundreds of his supporters that he would be appealing a jail sentence and demanded for justice.
South Africa’s highest court on Monday sentenced the former president to 15 months in prison for defying a court order to testify before a graft commission.
“I’m not asking for sympathy, but justice. My age and health condition and any other mitigating circumstances were not considered when the imprisonment was decided“, he said.
Numerous witnesses, including former cabinet ministers and senior executives of state-owned enterprises, have testified about Zuma’s wrongdoing, which included allowing his associates, the Gupta family, to influence his cabinet selections and lucrative state contracts.
Zuma’s deadline to surrender, as mandated by the Constitutional Court, expired on Sunday and he now faces the possibility of arrest.
“Sending me to jail during the height of a pandemic at my age is the same as sentencing me to death“, Zuma added.
Supporters of President Zuma seem to be showing no signs of relenting, as they continued to express their support for him.
Hundreds of people, some of whom had traveled more than 400 kilometers, gathered outside Zuma’s remote home in the KwaZulu-Natal province and promised to thwart any arrest efforts.
Dressed in the insignia of the governing African National Congress (ANC) party, which includes a picture of Zuma and T-shirts that read in Zulu, “Wenzeni uZuma?” (“What has Zuma done?”), the supporters sang songs glorifying Zuma as a hero of the 1980s anti-white minority rule struggle.
The ANC’s top leaders have traveled to KwaZulu-Natal in an attempt to defuse tensions and to urge Zuma to follow court orders and prevent any riots.
Zuma has filed numerous legal proceedings in an attempt to escape being imprisoned. He submitted an application at the Constitutional Court on Friday seeking to have his sentence overturned, which the court will hear on July 12.
Zuma’s foundation said on Tuesday that he would apply for an interdict to prevent the police from arresting him.
