It has now been 80 days since Schabir Shaik was released from prison on medical parole in order to “die a quiet and dignified death”. Shaik, however, is still very much alive. Is this a medical miracle in the making?
From now on, I will remind readers every 30 days that Shaik is still alive.
Every 30 days that Shaik remains alive provides more proof that the medical parole board released Shaik unlawfully and that the government lied about his condition. With the passing of every month, the scandal of his release grows bigger. We should not forget this.
Well his man’s in the big seat, isn’t he, with a promised pardon on the way.
Prof, talk to us about ‘I Spy’. Looking forward to strong argument as it applies to your specialty. I for one am feeling there is nothing we can do about anything related to the accelerating mess we’re in. And I wonder what such frustration, shared by many, will produce, or are we all too comfortable in our material world? Or will evolutionary stimulus take place, as in fight or flee?
Praise the Lord!!!
More notable of course are the thousands of terminal AIDS patients in jail that have not and will not benefit from parole for a terminal illness.
Perhaps somebody could count them and set up a rate of daily death and publish it.
Is anybody actually suprised by this? The ANC grew so big for it’s boots that the excuses offered were half-arsed at best, with the vaguest attempt possible to give this a semblance of legitimacy…it just goes to show, in the new SA, crime does pay – if you have the right connections inn the right political party…
“With the passing of every month, the scandal of his release grows bigger”
Surely not as big as the scandal of Jacob Zuma’s charges being dropped?
Come on prof, its the Lord thak gives life and its the lord that takes it as well. You may call it miracles or what ever. The goverment cant do any thing about it.
May the poor bastard live longer .
Interesting. Maybe the relevant doctors should attend to those who are dying of Aids complications and see if their assessments will make people live longer!
I can’t really do better than echo George Gildenhuys’s comment.
Perhaps JZ introduced Schabir Shaik to the Rhema Bible Church who laid hands on him and prayed for a physical miracle … which then happened.
One miracle is not enough. He needs more miracles: confession of wrongdoing and the repentANCe would be a great step in the right direction.
I still have a strong feeling that I know one of the doctors involved in the cover up. If anyone has the resources to investigate please do. The doctor at the PMB Correctional centre…
I hope, for Shaik’s sake that he die very soon to avoid this lingering doubt.
Long live Shaik long, live!!!
You people, have no shame how dare you wish death upon anther human being, please concentrate on more important news, like the all white face Zille cabinet!
I sincerely doubt that this is a medical cover-up. The culprits are most likely in correctional services. This because a doctor cannot make a parole recommendation.
As a Christian who believe in miracles I cannot (and will not) support claims (even in sarcastic jest) that a miracle has taken place here – or, even hope that Shaik dies like some bloggers here seem to do. I will also not joke at or look down on his personal belief or religion (whatever that may be, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Bhudist, Atheist, …), as that is not the Christian thing to do (yes – the Crusades, like apartheid, were wrong and should never have been undertaken in the name of Christianity – true Christians do not believe in violent submission of other beliefs), but will keep on praying for him.
However, Christians do believe in justice and, when one has wronged in the eyes of the law, they do believe in just punishment. What I can say, is that prima facie there has been foul play in his early release, resulting in a miscarriage of justice, and other prisoners have been treated unfairly in the process. Although the Medical council has absolved the doctors involved here for not having acted unethically, prima facie it cannot be said that the Parole Board (or whomever took the decision to release Shaik) acted in good faith here. The medical report(-s) that were divulged never stated that Shaik was terminally ill as required by law for a ‘medical parole release’, merely that he was ill and that medical parole was recommended because he could no longer benefit from his continued admission to a private hospital. The decision to release him on such medical report(-s) was therefore prima facie unlawful – and the decisionmaker(-s) is/are the person(-s) that have to be acted against. A judicial review of the release can also lead to Shaik’s re-incarceration (not re-incarnation), which I think would be the right thing to do. If he can be successfully treated (kept alive, medically) for his hypertension and heart conditions at home, not in hospital, then there is no reason why this should not be done in a prison cell if that is what he deserved (and the highest courts all said the 15 years sentence was his just deserts).
I wish him good health. May he never die! Let a miracle of live happen.
I really do not wish Shaik to die. I do wish that Shaik is sent back to prison from which he was unlawfully released to live a long life (at least some more years of it behind bars).
nkululeko, Garg. There was no cover up, it was a blatant dicision by the parole board to release mr. Shaik in terms of their powers to release a prisoner after taking certain factors into consideration and, as Prof de Vos pointed out, absolutely none of the circumstances that were present met these criteria to be released on medical parole and as Mouse pointed out the doctors were cleared, they said that mr. Shaik was in the cardio department of the hospital for high blood pressure and he shouldn’t be there, because a lot of people has high blood pressure that can be treated with commonly found medication, so they merely said he must move, they have priority patients to treat in this department.
This is where the miracle came in, the parole board then somehow misinterpreted it, trying to shift the blame or whatever absurd justification by releasing him in terms of a provision of the act that does not apply to his specific situation.
Long live the Shaik and the others who redicules the delivery of justice to those who are desperate to receive it.
I’ve been painted as a villain. How deeply it cuts… I am not sure that we can rule out a medical cover up entirely. I do agree that the parole board made a decision that seemed to go beyond what is ethical and legal.
Shaik certainly isn’t going back to prison. If anything at all, he’ll simply get a presidential pardon – watch this space. If he were to die I think I’d find myself saying “sy dood laat my koud” or his death leaves me cold. I don’t hope he dies simply because I don’t like him. If I do hope he dies, which I doubt I do, its simply to avoid reading about it every month and to show that the entire thing was entirely above board.
I found it interesting that a doctor friend of mine was offered (by the doctor at the DCS) to meet Shaik a few weeks before he was released on medical parole. Maybe I’m just cynical but I don’t think the matter’s as simple as it appears.
I’m a cynic to the end. I fear the matter is just as simple as it appears, namely a friend of Zuma had favours done for him.
@ Nkululeko
The doctor you are refering to as being involved in the cover up in Pmb is my aunt. i take exception to your innuendo. I’ve had numerous chats with her and know her personally not to be involved in politics. Medics were all cleared.
Accept the results of the investigation as was requested by everyone and proved otherwise.
We can’t always assume every person is corrupt and has low morals if we don’t agree with the decision. It hurts to us who know we live by the book and respect other people.
I can’t pass an opinion on Shaiks health but, i took exception to your comments about my aunt.
Musa:
I agree with you that the medics involved were all cleared. I don’t think they had any reason to lie. The medical reports throughout have been consistent, namely that Shaik should’ve returned to prison from the medical ward as they had no reason to keep him under medical supervision.
Even the medical reports afterwards were all consistent, and the investigations merely found that the medical reports were consistent. What was released to the media, however, was not exactly what those medical reports contained, merely that they had been consistent with each other.
The only inconsistency here is that the correctional services decided to release someone on parole who supposedly suffered from chronic blood pressure problems but who ate Steers and take-aways while imprisoned. According to the medical reports, Shaik was not sick enough to remain in the sick ward, yet someone decided to keep him there.
i agree pierre. fully.
I’ve been asking over and over but no one seems to answer. The medical recommendation said that the Department of Correctional Services was “reluctant” to take Shaik back into prison custody, so the doctors recommended Medical Parole to get him out the ward.
Where does Correctional Services derive the power to pick and choose prisoners? Are they not mandated to hold everyone who the Court has sentenced?
If they are NOT allowed to decide when are “reluctant” to take a prisoner, should this not form the basis of any Judicial Review action and not what went down at the Parole Board Hearing?
Mpho – You’ll be surprized at the powers that Correctional Services appropriate unto themselves, even where no law mandates them to do so.
I’ve had cases where they refused to admit sentenced prisoners, because they (wrongly) feel that they should have received different sentences; because they (wrongly) feel that the warants for detention were not completed correctly; because the prisoners were only brought to the facility by the police/sheriff after hours (e.g., where the persons were sentenced at 16h00 and presented to prison at 17h15); etc. In one such a case, the prisoners (sentenced to 12 years imprisonmet each for murder) were to be re-admitted after their appeal was dismissed and amended warants of detention (to reflect the different admission dates for calculation of the sentences) had to be completed. They handed themselves over to the clerk of the court and the police, but were turned away at prison because they were 5 minutes late (the closest prison beig 100 km’s away from the court venue) and, because the police had no detention facility available (and because the warant of detention did not stipulate that the police could hold the prisoners until properly detained in a correctional facility), the police released them. When warants of arrest were then issued, the police refused to arrest them, arguing that, since they escaped the ‘hangman’s noose’ because the rope broke (figuratively speaking), they cannot be re-arrested to serve the same sentence. That happened six years ago, and ever since SAPS and Correctioal Serivices just refuse to re-admit those prisoners. In yet another case, the accused person was convicted of rape in circumstances where he knew he was HIV positive and he raped a young girl at the advice of some stupid “to be cured”. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment (the mandatory sentence being life imprisonment), and the warant of detention was endorsed that Correctional Services must see to it that the prisoner receives appropriate medical treatment (ARV’s etc) for his condition. They first refused to admit him, saying that he was in any case dying ad that the court should have imposed another sentence. Eventually they admitted him, and released him on so-called medical parole after a week in prison. A year later, he was re-arrested, prosecuted and convicted for a similar offence and, when admitted to a different prison, he was not released on the same grounds. That happened three years ago, and he is still alive and well inside of prison.
Then there are the cases where Correctioal Services decides, without legal authority to do so, to release awaiting trial prisoners because they feel that they cannot afford the amount of bail set. Courts then have many hours of problems to have to issue new warants of arrest and to bring the persons before court again, simply because, when they were released, they were not legally obliged to appear in court again on the next date scheduled for appearance. So I can continue and tell you many more hair-raising stories.
But, I agree, in this case, Correctional Services had no right to decide whether he is too ill (or too smart and rich) to be placed in a prison cell.
Shoo! I’m sorry I asked now! Glad to have Mapisa-Nqakula there to sort out that mess – I don’t think!