The daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, has appeared in court on terrorism charges over her alleged involvement in the 2021 riots that left more than 300 people dead.

Violence, chaos, and fear ripped through the port city of Durban, then spread to Gauteng, after Zuma’s jailing sparked intense protests over four years ago.

Zuma-Sambudla, a controversial figure in her own right, was accused of sharing incendiary social media posts that fuelled the civil unrest.

The arrest comes as a ”result of a meticulous investigation” said spokesperson for the Hawks elite police unit, Brig Thandi Mbambo.

Zuma-Sambudla handed herself in to Durban Central police station on Thursday morning to face charges under the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities Act and incitement to commit violence, police said.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga said the investigation had taken such a long time because the case was "complex" and “unique”.

“It is the first time that the NPA is charging a person based on content posted on what we call X, which was previously known as Twitter, for content that we consider to amount to incitement to commit terrorism,” the News24 site quotes him as saying.

Zuma-Sambudla told the court that she intended to plead not guilty to the charges.

She also said that there was no evidence linking her to the riots.

The case has been postponed to March for trial in the Durban High Court and she has been released on bail.

Supporters of her father’s party uMkhonto WeSizwe (MK), of which she is a senior member, gathered at the courtroom to rally behind her.

Zuma was also present and gave a speech.

“They are now arresting my child because they don’t like her, nor do they like her father, or the party that he leads. Are we going to keep quiet?” he said.

He added: "We are here for nothing. I was also arrested for nothing.”

This is not the first time Zuma-Sambudla’s name has been brought up in connection to the 2021 riots, which are considered one of the bloodiest episodes in post-apartheid South Africa.

Zuma resigned as president in 2018 after nine years in office, plagued by corruption allegations, which he claimed were part of a political conspiracy.

He then refused to testify at a judicial inquiry into these allegations and was jailed for contempt of court.

Protests erupted after he surrendered to serve his sentence.

During the unrest, Zuma-Sambudla was outspoken on X, frequently sharing images of the destruction and chaos, accompanied by the caption: “KZN, we see you.”

She used this phrase often throughout the violence. In a now deleted post, she shared a video of someone firing an automatic rifle at a poster of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Last year, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) released a report that said the riots were a “carefully orchestrated event”.

But it said it could find no direct link to Zuma’s arrest.

In 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 riots.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who succeeded Jacob Zuma in 2018, described the violence as an “attempted insurrection”.

More than 200 shopping malls were looted and more than 150,000 jobs were estimated to have been lost during the unrest, which lasted for several days.

Last year, Zuma’s MK ran against his former party, the ANC, in elections, gaining 15% of the vote to become the country’s third largest party. (BBC)