By Thapelo Molefe
The trial of former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla will continue in the Durban High Court on Tuesday. She faces charges of incitement to commit terrorism and incitement to commit public violence.
Proceedings are expected to continue to focus on whether Zuma-Sambudla’s social media activity during the July 2021 unrest amounted to incitement.
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Digital law expert Emma Sadleir remained under cross-examination by defence counsel Dali Mpofu on Tuesday.
Sadleir reiterated that her analysis was based solely on publicly available posts from Zuma-Sambudla’s account, noting that she published 28 tweets in 36 hours as violence spread across KwaZulu-Natal.
Sadleir described the posts as reflecting “encouragement, jubilation and celebration” of the events.
With more than 360,000 followers, Sadleir described Zuma-Sambudla as an “influencer” whose content could spread rapidly.
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The State argues that Zuma-Sambudla’s “we see you” posts fuelled the deadly riots, which left over 350 people dead and caused over R50 billion in economic damage.
Mpofu, however, challenged this interpretation, insisting that the phrase should be understood as a greeting in Zulu rather than incitement.
He argued that the posts represented political solidarity and expression, not calls to violence.