As a citizen, all you can do is hope that the South African legal system holds criminals accountable.

Even when a guilty verdict is secured, though, the wealthy and well-connected still have a way to wangle out of paying their debts to society, and Schabir Shaik is living proof of that.

It’s now 10 years since the convicted fraudster was released from prison on medical parole, thanks to a diagnosis that he was terminally ill. That’s despite being sentenced to 15 years in jail, with less than two and a half served before that parole.

One might call it something of a medical miracle that he’s still chugging along, although his doctor insists the right call was made back in March 2009.

When contacted last week about his amazing turnaround in health, Shaik laid it on thick. Here’s the Herald:

“Today I am not well at all . . . my blood pressure you know . . . I can’t talk now actually because I am very sick,” he said while coughing.

He abruptly ended the call, and later apologised that his ill health had cut short the interview.

Sounds like when you’ve called in sick with a hangover and the boss rings to check in. Still, a better reaction than that time he told a journalist he was going to “kick him in his p**s” for enquiring about his health.

Despite the blood pressure and all that stuff, you know, Shaik has been seen out and about rather regularly, “spotted at restaurants and coffee shops and even hit the links at the Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course in Reservoir Hills”.

No word on whether he is still regularly beating caddies at said golf course.

In case you’re playing catch up, the fraudster managed to funnel more than R4 million to Jacob Zuma between 1995 and 2005, with the latter helping Shaik secure lucrative business deals.

About that terminal illness:

…his doctors told the parole board that he was in the final phase of a terminal disease.

They held he was also clinically depressed‚ losing his eyesight‚ had suffered a stroke‚ and would die from “severe” high blood pressure.

In a 2008 report, Professor DP Naidoo told the head of Durban’s Westville Prison that Shaik could “not be kept in hospital indefinitely”.

Naidoo recommended that Shaik be released on medical parole, and still stands by his decision all these years later.

For a man suffering from severe high blood pressure and other ailments, the fraudster has done alright. In 2015, the parole board even allowed him to return to work, and play sport once a week.

Wow, a real ‘fighting back from the brink’ story that fills you with hope, hey?

[source:herald]