The news came shortly before midnight, when a police deadline to arrest the former president would have expired.

His foundation tweeted that Zuma decided to comply with the incarceration order and was on his way to hand himself in at a correctional services facility in KwaZulu-Natal.

Around the same time, the police ministry issued a statement.

"The Police Ministry can confirm that former President of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma, was on the 7th July 2021, placed in the custody of the South African Police Service, in compliance with the Constitutional Court judgment," Police Minister Bheki Cele’s spokesperson Lirandzu Themba said.

A motorcade comprising several vehicles was seen entering and exiting Zuma's Nkandla homestead.

And in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Department of Correctional Services' Singabakho Nxumalo sent out a statement.

"The Department of Correctional Services can confirm that Mr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma has been admitted to start serving a 15-months sentence at Estcourt Correctional Centre, KwaZulu-Natal. 

"Mr Zuma will be taken through all the admission processes as per DCS regulations. Other relevant prescripts pertaining to admitting and orientating newly incarcerated persons will also be followed and executed.

"Details about the appropriate classification, prerogatives and incarceration conditions can only be determined at the completion of the assessment process to be undertaken by relevant authorities within the employ of DCS."

Zuma, who mounted a legal attempt to avoid jail, refused to turn himself in by Sunday night as ordered by the Constitutional Court last week. 

Police were given three days to arrest him if he failed to surrender.

ECR