ARETA condemns the two-faced deception committed by Cyril Ramaphosa in the matter of illegal incarceration and release of President Jacob Zuma

12 August 2023

ARETA rejects the two faced deception and trickery committed by Cyril Ramaphosa in the matter of the illegal incarceration of Former President Zuma.

There was no legal basis for the re-incarceration of President Zuma and there was no legal basis for the so-called remission of his sentence, which he had served in full.

ARETA recalls that the Supreme Court of Appeals set aside the High Court’s declaratory order that the time President Zuma was out on medical parole should not be considered for the fulfilment of his sentence of 15 months imposed by the Constitutional Court. The Court stated that: “Matters concerning how an inmate serves his or her sentence; when and how he or she qualifies for and is to be released on parole, quintessentially reside in the province of the executive – the Department in this instance”.

ARETA further recalls that as a matter of law, a parole does not shorten the length of a sentence. Instead parole is a change in the manner in which a sentence is served in that the parolee remains under the custody of the institution from which he is released but executes the unexpired portion of his sentence outside of confinement. Even a person mistakenly placed on parole continues to serve his sentence albeit outside the confines of prison walls. The Department of Correctional Services confirmed more than a year ago that President Zuma had indeed finished serving his sentence under parole. The SCA declared: “Whether the time spent by Mr Zuma on unlawfully granted medical parole should be taken into account in determining the remaining period of his incarceration, is not a matter for this Court to decide. It is a matter to be considered by the Commissioner.

If he is empowered by law to do so, the Commissioner might take that period into account in determining any application or grounds for release.” Ramaphosa interfered with that process and did not allow the Commissioner to decide exactly that question as directed by the SCA.

The cowardly Ramaphosa was however too weak to pronounce decisively, and tell the racist DA where to get off. Instead Ramaphosa, acting on the advise of his white monopoly capitalist advisors, engaged in a cynical, unlawful and unconstitutional manipulation of the legal process. He was aware of the strong feelings among the masses that President Zuma was not going back to jail without a fight. Thus, Ramaphosa hatched a up an elaborate, truly crazy scheme, to simultaneously imprison and release President Zuma, hoping to please everybody and in the process he actually succeeded to to annoy everybody, who can see through the pile of rubbish that he cooked up, to put it politely.

Instead of allowing the Correctional Services Commissioner to address the issue of whether the time spent by Mr Zuma on unlawfully granted medical parole should be taken into account in determining the remaining period of his incarceration, the Incompetent Ramaphosa purports to have granted President Zuma “a special remission”. That is nonsensical as there can be no remission of a sentence already served and completed by a prisoner. According to the incompetent Ramaphosa, President Zuma was supposed to serve another prison term after the Department confirmed that he completed his sentence under parole last year.

While we are obviously elated that Msholozi is still at home where he belongs, we reject the devious trickery of Ramaphosa to appear as the hero who “released” President Zuma when he was already a free man. If Ramaphosa cared for President Zuma and his health he would never have allowed the former President to have been imprisoned without trial in the first place.

We are also proud of the fact that about 10 000 other inmates have benefitted from the freedom of President Zuma as a leader of all our people. They too will know that it is President Zuma who is responsible for their freedom and not the cowardly Ramaphosa and his nonsensical laughable stories about “overcrowding” and “remission”. Throughout this painful chapter President Zuma has maintained his dignity and total respect for the law. It must be emphasised that he never at any stage placed himself on either medical parole or so-called remission.

This episode has shown once again that Ramaphosa is no leader but a hardened criminal as he demonstrated by his actions in Marikana and more recently in Phala Phala, as confirmed by the former Chief Justice Ngcobo. It is Ramaphosa who belongs in jail and not President Zuma.

Next Tuesday ARETA will support Former President Zuma in the Pietermaritzburg High Court for his application for the removal of Billy Downer as the prosecutor in his case. Till today and despite his empty promises made two years ago in August 2021 the corrupt Ramaphosa and Lamola have failed to act on the misconduct of Downer in leaking President Zuma’s confidential medical information.

Issued by Carl Niehaus, President of ARETA, 14 August 2023