Former Minister of Police and ANC leader, Bheki Cele, has opened up about why officials had to make sure that former President Jacob Zuma was jailed in late June 2021, leading to the July 2021 riots and looting.

Cele says there was a clear Constitutional Court ruling that Zuma should surrender to start serving his 15-month sentence for contempt of the apex court. If not, Cele and the then Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, should frogmarch him to his prison cell. If they failed to do so, they would be arrested for failing to perform their tasks.

Cele says he was not ready to take that bullet for Zuma, hence they had to act. He was speaking to Sizwe Walsh-Mpofu of SMX Podcast, and the comment has since gone viral on social media.

“Zondo has said if doesn’t come in, Minister of Justice and Minister of Police are going in prison, yes, he said so. So, I was not going to go to prison. The Judge has said so,” Cele said.

He then narrated how they waited for Zuma to surrender as per his undertaking, and police were on standby to go and “fetch him” if he reneged on that undertaking.

“And that was going to be the most painful moment to do it rather than him going,” he added.

Zuma was found guilty for refusing to go and testify in the Zondo Commission, which was probing allegations of state capture during his nine-year presidency between 2009 and 2018.

He eventually surrendered and started serving his sentence at the Estcourt Correctional Centre in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.

However, a few days later, riots broke out in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, with people demanding his release. That led to the burning and looting of businesses and the death of over 300 people.