More alleged instigators to be arrested

MORE alleged instigators who stoked the fires of July 2021’s looting and scenes of unbridled violence that engulfed Kwazulu-natal and parts of Gauteng are expected to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court this week.

This, after 22 accused appeared before magistrate Anand Maharaj at the courthouse on Friday.

The majority of the accused were arrested on Thursday, while three more arrests were made on Friday.

Advocates Mahen Naidu and Yuri Gangai were the prosecutors.

The arrests came after months of investigation, which was guided by the NPA and involved various police teams including the Hawks and the Serious Corruption Investigation, Serious Commercial Crime Investigation, and Digital Forensic Investigation units.

It is believed the accused were participants of Whatsapp groups that were used to drive and direct looters.

At times some of the instigators went to places where arson and looting had been committed to rally looters into action.

The 22 accused have been charged with conspiracy to commit public violence, incitement to commit public violence as well as incitement to commit arson.

They were each granted bail of R3000 and the matter was adjourned to August 26.

The number of arrested instigators was expected to grow to more than 80 in the coming days.

Before the names of the 22 were made known in court, there was speculation on the sidelines that former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-sambudla, was likely to be among the accused.

But Major-general Lesetja Senona, the Hawks head in KZN, quelled this.

Senona said Zuma-sambudla was not among those arrested.

However, DA MP advocate Glynnis Breytenbach included her among the people the party brought incitement to violence charges against in July 2022.

They claimed that Zuma-sambudla was approving of the anarchy and offered encouragement to those responsible for the mayhem with her social media posts, and she gained notoriety for attaching the words “we see you”, followed by #Freejacobzuma, to the pictures of destruction she posted.

Senona said he was unable to speak on the status of the investigations into Zuma-sambudla’s apparent conduct, but confirmed they would table their findings before the NPA to make a prosecutorial decision.

President Cyril Ramaphosa told the SA Human Rights Commission in April the “attempted insurrection” left nearly two million people jobless, cost the economy more than R50 billion and claimed the lives of more than 350 people.

With members of the public calling for the arrest and conviction of those involved in the riots, the NPA has since secured the conviction of and an effective five-year prison sentence for Lungelo Nthenga in June.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of unrest-related theft.

Nthenga, a taxi driver, used his vehicle to transport looters to a business hub in Mobeni, south of Durban.

When police searched his vehicle at a roadblock they found various grocery items, including tinned fish and rice.

In the same month, Samkelo Mthembu was sentenced to five years imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to a theft of a motor vehicle charge. Mthembu helped himself to a business-owned vehicle in the Mobeni precinct amid the looting.

Last week, the trial of alleged instigator Ndumiseni Khetha Zuma continued in the Pietermaritzburg Regional Court.

Zuma faces charges of incitement to commit public violence and incitement to commit arson over his involvement in the destruction of the Brookside Mall during the unrest.

He was arrested in September and his bail application was unsuccessful.