|
Shaik Walks Free |
| Publication |
Cape Times |
| Date | 2009-03-03 |
| Reporter |
Angela Quintal, Shaun Smillie, Jeff Wicks |
| Web Link | www.capetimes.co.za |
Convicted businessman Schabir Shaik has been granted medical parole - after
months of lobbying by his family and doctors.
Shaik was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2005 after he was convicted on two
counts of corruption and one of fraud. This was based on evidence of a corrupt
relationship between himself and then South African and ANC deputy president
Jacob Zuma.
At the time of going to press on Monday night, there was a lot of activity at
the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban, where Shaik had spent a good deal
of his incarceration.
There were indications that he was to join his family a free man on Monday
evening, to avoid the expected media scrum once news of his medical parole broke
on Tuesday.
In the two years and four months he has been in
jail, Shaik has spent most of the time in
either private or prison hospitals due to high blood pressure,
depression and chest pains, which his
family and doctors insist are life threatening.
The decision to grant Shaik medical parole was made on Monday after he again
appeared before the Correctional Supervision and Parole Board of the Durban
Westville Management Area, correctional services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela
said on Monday night.
It comes two days after ANC president Jacob Zuma, in an interview with the
Weekender newspaper, said that if he became president after the April elections,
he would pardon shaik.
"It should be noted that in terms of section 75 (8) of the Correctional
Services Act (Act 111 of 1998), the 'decision of the board is final' and can
only be reviewed by the Correctional Supervision and Parole Review board, led by
a judge," Wolela said.
The department had requested a written report and would consider making comment
only after studying it, Wolela said.
Shaik's brother Mo insisted on Monday night that he knew nothing about his
brother's parole.
"We have been receiving phone calls on the matter since this afternoon, but we
haven't heard anything from the Department of Correctional Services or from any
of his family," he said.
However, it is understood that the family alerted Zuma to Shaik's impending
release earlier in the day.
Zuma said at the weekend that, given Shaik's health, he should have been
released long ago.
However, the decision to release Shaik on medical parole is bound to stir up a
hornet's nest. The Correctional Services Act states that a prisoner can be
released on medical parole only when an inmate is
diagnosed as "terminally ill by a medical doctor".
With acknowledgements to
Angela Quintal, Shaun Smillie, Jeff Wicks and Cape Times.