Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, 43, daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of inciting the deadly 2021 riots that left over 350 people dead.
Zuma-Sambudla faces accusations of inciting terrorism and public violence via social media after her father was imprisoned in July 2021 for refusing to testify in corruption proceedings against him.
The ensuing unrest, marked by looting and violence, became the deadliest since the end of apartheid in 1994.
A parliamentarian with her father’s MK party, she is charged with three counts related to posts on Twitter (now X), including images of the riots captioned “We see you”, which the prosecution alleges were inflammatory.
The trial opened in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal—the heartland of Zuma’s political support—with Zuma himself present in court. Zuma-Sambudla and her supporters maintain that the case is politically motivated.
Durban bore the brunt of the violence, which also spread to Johannesburg, causing widespread destruction estimated at billions of rands.
Then-President Cyril Ramaphosa, who succeeded Zuma in 2018, deployed the military to quell the unrest, describing it as an attempted insurrection.
Jacob Zuma, who led South Africa from 2009 to 2018, was sentenced to 15 months in jail for defying a commission investigating corruption and cronyism during his tenure.
He served only two months before being released on health grounds, and his sentence was later commuted by Ramaphosa.
The two-week trial is expected to examine the role of social media in the unrest and the extent of Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla’s involvement in inciting violence.
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