Yengeni says he should not have been jailed

A report on the Mail & Guardian Online site quotes Yengeni as saying: ‘It is a great day for me and my family and for the movement in that I\'m now walking out of the gate of this prison, a place that I was not supposed to be in the first place. But we\'ll get to that at a later stage.’ Yengeni was set free having served just more than four months of his original four-year sentence. Political parties have slammed Yengeni’s early release. The DA has described his jail term as ‘one of the lightest punishments received by a convicted fraudster’. Patricia de Lille, head of the Independent Democrats, said that the ANC had set ‘a very bad example’. ‘I think it’s absolutely disgusting that he has only served four months out of a four-year sentence.’ The IFP said Yengeni’s early release was a national disgrace. Full report on Mail & Guardian Online site

Yengeni took the opportunity to slam the media, rejecting as fabrications reports that he received preferential treatment during his incarceration. A report on the News24 site quotes him as saying: ‘A lot of wrong things have been said about me during my incarceration, including reports that the Minister of Correctional Services, Ngconde Balfour, hosted me and my family for lunch while I was in prison – this was complete fabrication,’ he said. However, Yengeni said he was not ready to respond to the many allegations made against him during both his trial and subsequent incarceration. Full report on News24 site

His release, though, doesn’t make him a free agent. The Cape Argus says that in terms of his correctional supervision conditions he will have to perform community service twice a month. Yengeni will be under strict correctional supervision, effectively placing him under house arrest. He will first have to go to the Cape Town Community Corrections Centre, where a parole officer will be assigned to him. His parole conditions also include working from Monday to Friday only, getting four hours of ‘spare time’ once a month over a weekend to do his shopping, applying to his parole officer for permission if he wants to leave home over weekends and not consuming drugs and alcohol, among others. Full Cape Argus report