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By Angela Quintal, Shaun Smillie and Jeff Wicks
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.
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'We have been receiving phone calls on the matter' 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 decision is bound to stir up a hornet's nest The department had requested a written report and would consider making comment only after studying it, Wolela said.
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