[imagesource: Emmanual Croset / AFP via Getty Images]

After serving a sliver of his sentence at Estcourt Correctional Centre, former president Jacob Zuma was placed on medical parole due to ill health.

He’s been healthy enough to punt his new book and has been seen regularly in public, but everybody knows that strings were pulled behind the scenes to help set the crook free.

In fact, if you look closely at the conditions a prisoner needs to meet in order to qualify for medical parole, there are some glaring discrepancies in how Zuma’s case played out.

At the centre of those discrepancies is Correctional Services Commissioner Arthur Fraser, who has a long-standing relationship with Zuma.

Earlier today, Fraser’s ruling was given the thumbs down. News24 reports:

The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has ruled that former National Commissioner of Correctional Services Arthur Fraser’s decision to place former president Jacob Zuma on medical parole was unlawful – and ordered that he should return to jail.

“It is declared that the time [Zuma] was out of jail on medical parole should not be counted for the fulfilment of [Zuma’s] sentence of 15 months imposed by the Constitutional Court,” the court ruled on Wednesday morning.

Zuma and the national commissioner were ordered to pay the costs of the medical parole challenge.

Well, that’s put a little extra pep in the step.

The judgment stated that Zuma “be returned to the custody of the department of correctional services to serve out the remainder of his sentence of imprisonment”.

Are we ever actually going to see Zuma behind bars again, or will there be endless legal challenges and delays and all the other tactics we have grown so used to?

At this stage, I’m not sure, but knowing that the former president will be sweating bullets is a good start.

You can keep up to speed on this breaking story via News24’s live updates.

[source:news24]