South African protesters run riot as former president fights jail sentence
South Africa’s top court began hearing a challenge by former president Jacob Zuma against a 15-month prison term on Monday as police said six people had been killed and more than 200 arrested in related protests and looting since last week.
Sporadic violence and looting continued on Monday, after a weekend of unrest by pro-Zuma protesters, mainly concentrated in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. Some disturbances spilled over into the country’s largest city, Johannesburg.
Mr Zuma, 79, was sentenced for defying a Constitutional Court order to give evidence at an inquiry investigating alleged high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018.
The decision to jail him resulted from legal proceedings regarded as a test of post-apartheid South Africa’s ability to enforce the rule of law, including against powerful politicians.
TV channels showed video on Monday of a fire at a mall in Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal.
The motorway leading to the city was closed to prevent further violence.
NatJoints, the government’s intelligence agency, said additional forces had been sent to all the areas in Gauteng – the province including Johannesburg – and KwaZulu-Natal affected by the violence, as the damage to property and looting of stores continued overnight.
It said the bodies of four people were found – at least two of them with gunshot wounds – in Gauteng. Two deaths took place in KwaZulu-Natal and all six are being investigated.
Mr Zuma’s imprisonment marks a significant fall for an important figure in the African National Congress, the liberation movement that became South Africa’s ruling party. He was once jailed by South Africa’s pre-1994 white minority rulers.