JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 17 Reuters - South Africa's top court has overturned the former president Jacob Zuma on Friday for failing to attend a corruption inquiry.
The sentence was handed down after Zuma failed to testify at an inquiry probing corruption during his 9 - year tenure, seen as a test of Post-apartheid South Africa's ability to enforce the rule of law, particularly against powerful politicians.
Zuma, recuperating after surgery for an undisclosed illness in hospital, asked the court in July to revoke its sentence for contempt arguing it was excessive and that prison would endanger his health and life.
In a major decision the Constitutional Court rejected his arguments.
It was the latest legal setback for the 79 year-old Antiapartheid veteran from the ruling African National Congress, whose presidency between 2009 - 2018 was marred by widespread allegations of corruption and malfeasance. He denies wrongdoing.
His jailing on July 7 after handing himself over at the last minute to police triggered some of the worst riots and looting in decades, with more than 300 people killed and thousands of businesses pillaged and razed.
The violence, which President Cyril Ramaphosa described as a failed insurrection was also fuelled by simmering frustration among largely Black communities still living in squalid conditions long after the ANC swept to power at South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.