NKANDLA - In a frantic attempt to halt his looming jailing, former President Jacob Zuma has simultaneously launched another legal fight, asking the Pietermaritzburg High Court to interdict Minister of Police Bheki Cele and the police from arresting him until the Concourt has heard his fresh application.
In separate court papers seen by Independent Media, Zuma says he wants KwaZulu-Natal Judge President to assign a judge to hear the matter by Tuesday because Cele and Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole have until Wednesday to come and frogmarch him to prison.
The application is 27 pages long and Zuma’s new spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi confirmed that Zuma has indeed approached the Pietermaritzburg High Court on an urgent basis. He insists that there was a miscarriage of justice in his case, as he was sentenced without a trial.
“Due to the extreme urgency of this matter, as applicant and dominus litis, I have instructed my legal representatives to urgently approach the Honourable Judge President for his case management of the matter, with the view that it be urgently allocated to a Judge or Judges, as the case may be, by no later than Tuesday, July 6, 2021.
“The period within which the first and/or second respondents would otherwise be duty-bound to act in order to execute the impugned order expires on Wednesday, July 7, 2021. It is however, not reasonably anticipated that they will take any action while the outcome of this application, of which they will then be aware, is pending,” he argues in the papers.
Among the other respondents cited by Zuma in this new case is President Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, the minister of correctional services who has since been instructed to prepare him a jail cell at Westville prison in Durban, and Police commissioner, General Khehla Sitole.
Further, in his papers, Zuma repeats claims he made in the papers to the Concourt on Friday that he did not oppose the application by the Zondo commission to ask the Concourt to sentence him to a jail term because he was broke. According to him, he did not want to be penalised with cost orders when he is already knee-deep in debt in the tune of R20 million as a result of previous court orders.
However, in his previous press statements he released, Zuma never raised the matter of being broke as the reason he was not litigating. He said he never wanted to participate in a court proceeding where politics is a factor, and the outcome had been pre-determined, allegedly because Zondo holds sway over Concourt judges where he is the second in command.
The Jacob Zuma Foundation has said Zuma will address the nation on Sunday and the address will be from Durban, implying that he is holed up in the eastern coastal city.
IOL