Former South African president Jacob Zuma has been discharged from a Pretoria hospital and is back at his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal where he will continue to serve his 15-month sentence on medical parole, APA learnt on Saturday.
Zuma was earlier this month admitted to the unnamed hospital to undergo surgery for undisclosed disease, where the doctors successfully operated on him.
Department of Correctional Services national commissioner Arthur Fraser authorised Zuma’s release on medical parole after serving almost two months of his prison sentence for contempt of court.
Zuma was arrested after ignoring a Constitutional Court ruling ordering him to appear before a panel investigating high-level corruption during his term of office that ended in 2018.
The opposition Democratic Alliance and lobby group AfriForum have since headed to the courts to challenge Fraser’s decision to grant Zuma medical parole.
Meanwhile, the former president is trying to get the Pietermaritzburg High Court to assist him to force prosecutor Billy Downer to recuse himself from prosecuting Zuma in a multi-billion dollar arms scandal case.
The two sides wrapped up their arguments in the application for Downer to recuse himself on Friday.
Zuma and French arms company Thales are facing 16 corruption, racketeering and money laundering charges in connection with the 1999 multi-billion-dollar arms deal.
He was a deputy state president to former president Thabo Mbeki at the time, and Mbeki subsequently fired him to free Zuma to face the accusations in court.
However, before the case was underway in the courts Zuma manoeuvred his way into the presidency, ousting Mbeki to take over in 2008.
The case was reconvened after Zuma left power in 2018, and is now busy clearing the hurdles of the legitimacy of Downey as prosecutor.
NM/jn/APA