The daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, Duduzile Zuma-Samborla, has been arrested over her alleged commitment to the riots in 2021 that left 300 people died, police said.
Violence, chaos and fear jumped through the port city of Durban and then spread to Gauteng after Zuma’s prison triggered intense protests over four years ago.
Zuma-Samborla, a controversial figure in its own right, was accused of sharing burning social media posts that burned civilian turmoil.
The arrest comes as a “result of a careful investigation” spokesman for Hawks Elite Police Unit said Brig Thandi Mbambo.
Zuma-Samborla handed over to Durban Central Police Station on Thursday morning to be subjected to charges under the protection of constitutional democracy against the Law on Terror and Related Activities and Encourage to commit violence, police say.
Her father’s party Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK), as she is a senior member, confirmed her court appearance and urged supporters to “mobilize all land forces to participate in numbers.”
While she has not commented directly on the charges, Zuma-Shop shared a cryptic note on X that simply said, “We see you.”
MK -Party spokesman Nhlamule Ndhela told the local TV company that she had long prepared at this moment
“She conditioned herself because there have been many threats of her impending arrest for the last three or four years,” he said.
He added that she will comply with the law as “a law -abiding citizen.”
This is not the first time her name has been brought up in connection with the riots in 2021, considered one of the bloodiest episodes in South Africa after apartheid.
Zuma retired as president in 2018 after nine years in office, plagued by allegations of corruption, which he claimed was part of a political conspiracy.
Three years later, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt for court after refusing to testify to a panel investigating corruption during his presidency.
Protests broke out after he surrendered to serve his judgment.
Under the turmoil, Zuma-Shop was obvious to X, which often shared images of the destruction and chaos, accompanied by the headline: “Kzn, we see you.”
She used this sentence often throughout the violence. In a now deleted post, she shared a video of someone firing an automatic rifle on a poster of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In 2022, Brig Mbambo told local media that they did not directly examine her, but she had been named in statements from sources.
In response to this, Zuma-Shop said on x“I’m not scared! I won’t be frightened! I have beaten the dogs, now the masters are coming out! We see you!”
At the same time, Jacob Zuma Foundationsaid in a statement that the children of the former president were targeted.
Last year, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) published a report that said the rebels were a “carefully orchestrated event.”
But it said it could not find any direct connection to Zuma’s arrest.
By 2023, a former security guard was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in the deadly riots.
He was the first person to be prosecuted for the rebellions.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who succeeded Jacob Zuma in 2018, described the violence as an “attempt at uprising”.
More than 200 shopping malls were looted, and more than 150,000 jobs were estimated to have been lost under the turmoil that lasted for several days.
Last year, Zuma’s MK ran against his former party, the ANC, by election and got 15% of the vote to become the country’s third largest party.