By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, daughter of former president Jacob Zuma, has pleaded not guilty to incitement to commit terrorism and public violence over deadly riots in 2021.
The trial began on Monday in the coastal city of Durban, Kwazulu-Natal (KZN).
Zuma-Sambudla is being prosecuted over what she wrote on social media four years ago during deadly protests.
She faces three counts related to her social-media posts during the civil unrest.
The charges include incitement to commit terrorism and violence, and Violation of Section 17 of the Riotous Assemblies Act 17 of 1956, which prohibits illegal gatherings intended to cause a riot.
Zuma’s nine-year presidency, littered with controversies, came to a halt in 2018 amid extensive graft allegations – all denied.
Then in 2021 he was jailed for failing to show up at a corruption inquiry, triggering protests and the worst scenes of violence since before the start of the democratic era in 1994.
A week of anarchy in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, including looting and arson, left at least 300 people dead and caused an estimated 2.2bn damage.
Prosecutors allege Zuma-Sambudla played a central role in stoking this.
During the proceedings, the State called its first witness Major General Gopal Gounden from the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigations (DPCI), also known as Hawks.
He was the coordinator of the team that investigated the unrest. Gounden told the court that there were 164 WhatsApp groups that were created specifically to instigate unrest as a direct response to Zuma’s incarceration.
However, he said after investigation, police focused on eight WhatsApp groups which he said actively ran and coordinated the unrest. He stated that in these groups there were direct instructions to people on the ground on what to do and when. He further revealed that the most active groups were the ones in eThekwini, which had 316 people.
“There were two WhatsApp groups in eThekwini. One was in the INK area which is Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu. We discovered 103 persons of interest in these groups. The unrest was well coordinated. Some of these groups were created around 29 June, 2021 which is the date when the Constitutional Court ordered the arrest of Zuma,” said Gounden.
The State argued that Zuma-Sambudla, because of her public status as Zuma’s daughter, coupled with her 124,000 X followers, assumed the title of social media influencer therefore what she wrote on her page was taken seriously by people. The Stated argued that her tweets before and after Zuma’s arrest in July 2021 incited public violence.
Zuma-Sambudla’s counsel, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC asked Gounden how the sharing of pictures and videos of burning trucks and property and then posting ‘we see you’ on social media, can be construed as inciting people.
Mpofu argued that the State has no case against Zuma-Sambudla, except that she is the daughter of former president.
“What other messages did she write for the State to conclude that she allegedly incited people to go and loot. Why did the police not charge the persons that posted pictures and videos of burning shops,” argued Mpofu.
The prosecution, led by Advocate Yuri Gangai, responded that the people that posted those videos did not write inciting messages, however, Zuma-Sambudla did when she wrote ‘we see you’. It also argued that the ‘we see you’ messages must be read in the context of the preceding messages from 30 June, a day after the Constitutional Court sentenced her father to 15 months of direct imprisonment.
Gangai alleged that in her preceding tweets, she wrote in Zulu: “Comrades, the time for fighting using cellphones is now over, amandla!”.
He argued that this message coupled with later images of burning trucks and shops and the caption of ‘we see you’ was an endorsement of what the people were doing, therefore it constituted incitement.
While the State conceded that Zuma-Sambudla was not linked to several WhatsApp groups that had been created at the time of the unrest, however, some of the members of the groups were her followers on X.
She said that there was no evidence linking her to the riots and that she would be pleading not guilty to the schedule six charges brought by the state.