Ignoring efforts to defuse a tense standoff, former South African President Jacob Zuma told hundreds of supporters gathered outside his rural estate that he is appealing his 15-month prison sentence and impending arrest by police.

South Africa’s top court, the Constitutional Court, last week sentenced Zuma to prison for defying a court order that he should testify before a commission investigating allegations of rampant corruption when he was president from 2009 to 2018. Several witnesses, including former Cabinet ministers and top executives of state-owned corporations, have testified of Zuma’s wrongdoing, including allowing his associates, the Gupta family, to influence his Cabinet appointments and lucrative state contracts.

Zuma did not turn himself in to authorities within five days, as the court ruling had ordered, and now faces arrest by police.

Hundreds of Zuma’s supporters, including some who traveled more than 400 kilometers (250 miles), gathered outside Zuma’s sprawling Nkandla compound, in rural KwaZulu-Natal province, vowing to prevent any attempts to arrest Zuma.

Top officials of the ruling African National Congress party have gone to KwaZulu-Natal to try to reduce tensions and to encourage Zuma to comply with the court orders and avoid any violent confrontations.

Zuma’s supporters remained defiant Sunday. Clad in ANC regalia bearing Zuma’s portrait and T-shirts with the question in Zulu “Wenzeni uZuma?” (“What has Zuma done?”) They sang songs praising Zuma as a hero of the 1980s struggle against white minority rule, known as apartheid.

The supporters defied South Africa’s COVID-19 regulations, in which wearing masks is compulsory and all social and political gatherings are prohibited.

Addressing his supporters, Zuma reiterated that he is not afraid of being jailed since he had been imprisoned before, being incarcerated by the apartheid regime for 10 years on Robben Island.