Complainant was alarmed by ‘violent’ Zuma-Sambudla tweets
Fraud examiner and complainant Sarah Jane Trent has testified on the violent tweets that led her to open a case against Zuma-Sambudla.
FEAR of the “violence spreading to Johannesburg” and to her doorstep is what prompted attorney and fraud examiner Sarah Jane Trent to open a case against incitement to cause terrorism accused Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who is currently on trial at the Durban High Court.
Trent is the second State witness in the trial against former President Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Zuma-Sambudla. She is also a former colleague of embattled forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan and the original complainant in the matter.
In her testimony, Trent detailed how she became aware of “the extreme tweets and post furthering the violence” during the civil unrest of July 2021.
“People were talking about the tweets in general discussion and that is how I found out about them. I was not following the accused at the time,” said Trent.
Also Read: Cuban links to July 2021 unrest introduced in court
A deep-dive into Zuma-Sambudla’s X account raised alarm bells for Trent. “The fear that it was instilling and the severity of the tweets were alarming. Nobody else seems to be doing anything about the tweet. I knew the basics of opening a case and filed off the statement,” said Trent.
“I was worried that this was going to spread to Johannesburg, it needed to stop. I was worried that it was going to come to my doorstep.”
The tweets that troubled Trent were of videos of machine guns being fired in the air and those that depict the destruction that unfolded during the unrest. The captioned tweets had words like “We see you” and “It’s time to fight”.
“She is a leader and a former president’s daughter and it was going to cause damage,” said Trent. “It was clear to see that from the tweet she was causing incitement to cause violence, malicious injury to property. The most severe was of the machine guns firing in the air and ‘We must rise up and we must fight’, they were violent and encouraging the public violence.”
The videos were played in court while a confident Zuma-Sambudla sat smiling in the dock. The trial is set to continue tomorrow with a new witness being introduced.
For more from Berea Mail, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also check out our videos on our YouTube channel or follow us on TikTok.
Click to subscribe to our newsletter – here
