Former President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, has been admitted to hospital, the country’s Department of Correctional Services disclosed in a statement on Friday.
It said in the statement, the Department of Correctional Services “can confirm that former President Jacob Zuma has today, August 6 2021, been admitted to an outside hospital for medical observation.”
No further reason was given for the hospitalisation on Friday, except that it was prompted by “a routine observation.”
Zuma, who was jailed for contempt of court last month, is due in court for a separate graft trial.
He is scheduled to attend the resumption of a long-running corruption trial on August 10.
South Africa’s constitutional court ordered Zuma jailed for refusing to give evidence at an inquiry into corruption during his nine years in office from 2009.
The 79-year-old, who has been accused of receiving bribes over a $2 billion weapons deal in the late 1990s, initially resisted arrest but later turned himself in.
Following the incarceration of Zuma, who wields support among the poor and among loyalists in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), protests broke out in the country.
The protests quickly turned into widespread looting as crowds pillaged shopping malls and warehouses, hauling away goods as police stood by, seemingly powerless to act.
A South African court had last month adjourned the trial of Zuma after the former leader applied for a postponement to appear personally rather than virtually.
