Riot trial date set for Jacob Zuma's daughter

Riot trial date set for Jacob Zuma’s daughter

The Durban High Court has set for November the trial of a daughter of South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma.

MK Party member of Parliament Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla in court. Image: X/@MkhonotweSizwex

The Durban High Court has set for November the trial of a daughter of South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma, accused of inciting 2021 riots that left more than 350 people dead.

Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, 42, is among several people charged with inciting terrorism and public violence via posts on social media after Zuma was sent to prison in July 2021 for refusing to testify in corruption proceedings against him.

Rioting and looting

The explosion of rioting and looting that followed was the deadliest unrest in South Africa since the fall of the white-minority government in 1994.

Zuma-Sambudla denies the charges and claims the case is politically motivated.

The Durban High Court set the start of her trial for November 10 with a pre-trial assessment due on August 14, National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga told AFP.

Durban, the main city in KwaZulu-Natal that is Jacob Zuma’s heartland, suffered the brunt of the violence, which also spread to Johannesburg.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took over from scandal-tainted Zuma in 2018, deployed the military to control the violence, which he called an attempted insurrection.

Zuma, president between 2009 and 2018, served only two months of a 15-month sentence before being released for health reasons. Ramaphosa later commuted his sentence.