Former South African President Jacob Zuma has been promised humane treatment as he began his 15-month jail time late Wednesday.
This was after he sensed a lack of reprieve from the legal challenges he had launched against his sentencing last week by the Custotitional Court for contempt.
Zuma was found guilty of contempt of court after failing to appear to answer lingering corruption charges against him.
Zuma, 79, is being held in a Medium B, Correctional Centre, which was opened in 2019 with the capacity to hold 512 inmates.
He would be in COVID-19 protocol isolation for 14 days and is entitled to parole after serving one-quarter of his jail time.
A South African High Court is expected on Friday to rule on his application against the sentence, while the Constitutional Court will also entertain Zuma’s appeal to aside the sentence next week.
Thr anti-apartheid hero, whose presidency from 2013, until his forced resignation in 2018 at the behest of the ruling ANC, was marred by corruption scandals.
Zuma caĺled his trial apartheid-era style trial and political persecution
He had previously taken a defiant position, with hundreds of supporters gathered in his residence in the past couple of days.
But he apparently had a change of mind, agreeing to leave his house to the prison centre after several police officers visited him late Wednesday.
Zuma still has other corruption charges against him pending before the courts.