Former President Jacob Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla appeared in court today for allegedly inciting violence during the July 2021 riots. In this interview, forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, who laid a charge against her in 2021 – and provided the police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) with forensic downloads of her Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts – outlines the case against her. “Now, I could be wrong, but I think this will probably be the first time on the planet, not just in South Africa, where a person is charged with inciting others to terrorism based on social media.” Describing her as “prime evil” and a “psychopath”, O’Sullivan charges: “She wants to see this country fail. And if she’s left to her own devices, the country would fail.” He also addresses a defamatory Tweet she made about him in which she accused him of involvement in the Phala Phala case. Meanwhile, her advocate, Dali Mpofu, says they plan to bring a case of malicious prosecution against the State because she believes that this case against her is aimed at settling political scores with her father.
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Highlights from the interview
In an interview with Chris Steyn, forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan discussed the ongoing legal case against Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former President Jacob Zuma, who faces allegations of inciting violence during the July 2021 riots. O’Sullivan, who filed a charge against her in 2021, detailed the evidence he provided to the police and the National Prosecuting Authority, which included forensic downloads of her social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook). He claims that her posts during the riots encouraged violence, with tweets praising destruction and violence in various parts of South Africa while promoting the message of “Free Jacob Zuma.”
O’Sullivan argued that Zuma-Sambudla’s actions went beyond free speech, inciting illegal activities like looting, arson, and racial hatred. He expressed frustration with the lengthy process leading to her court appearance, suggesting that it took time to gather solid evidence, especially from platforms like Twitter, which required international legal processes to obtain.
He also criticised her defence lawyer, Dali Mpofu, for suggesting the case was politically motivated. O’Sullivan emphasised the severity of the charges, suggesting that a conviction could send a strong message against social media-based incitement. He further expressed concern about the broader societal impact, noting that the country could face further violence if similar incidents arise. O’Sullivan also defended his own reputation against accusations from Zuma-Sambudla, calling her racially divisive and a threat to national stability.
Edited transcript of the interview
Chris Steyn (00:00.49)
Former President Jacob Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla appeared in court today for allegedly inciting violence during the July 2021 riots. We speak to forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, who laid a charge against her back in 2021 already. Welcome Paul.
Paul O’Sullivan (00:21.806)
All right, good afternoon.
Chris Steyn (00:24.084)
Paul, what evidence did you hand over to the police and the National Prosecuting Authority at that time?
Paul O’Sullivan (00:31.118)
I think it was on the 13th of July, 2021. What we managed to do, we forensically downloaded her Twitter account, her Instagram account, and her Facebook account. And the forensic downloads that we made were handed over to the State, together with a complaint where we alleged that her conduct went above and beyond what one might call freedom of speech, because the Constitution gives you the right to freedom of speech, but the Constitution also makes it clear that that freedom of speech should not extend to inciting persons to break the law.
And our allegations were that she, in fact, was inciting people to do the things that were going on at that moment in time which was horrific. A lot of people died and there were buildings being looted and burnt, trucks being burnt. And wherever there was some positive arson or violence going on that she felt comfortable with, she would issue a tweet that said, for example, Mooi River, we see you – and there’d be pictures of burning of vehicles or people lying down. And you’re not sure whether the people lying down are deceased persons or what they are. And then she would send another tweet like, Gauteng, we can’t see you. Mpumalanga, we can’t see you.
And all of these tweets were followed with, free Jacob Zuma or free Umsholozi. So it was clear that she was motivating that this would carry on until Jacob Zuma was freed. And with all the things that were going on in the country at that time, I was of the opinion that…
Paul O’Sullivan (02:51.72)
…she was stoking the fires, and that’s not a pun, that she was inciting people to do these things.
So we used a few examples of what we considered to be unlawful activity. And then we also set out chapter and verse as to which offenses we believe would have been committed.
And I think I sent that to the then Chief of Police, was Khehla Sithole, and to Shamila Batohi. And both of them responded fairly rapidly. And then we did more research and we supplied more information, which was requested as and when it was requested. So I’m satisfied that we made out a reasonable case. I suppose…
Chris Steyn (03:46.494)
Why has it taken so long to reach the courtroom?
Paul O’Sullivan (03:52.034)
Well, there’s a difference between… So you arrest a person to bring them to court. I’m of the opinion you can also arrest a person to stop a crime. So in my opinion, they should have arrested her there and then. But that didn’t happen for whatever reason. I guess she was a hot potato. And they decided, let’s just do this properly and build a proper case.
Now, I could be wrong, but I think this will probably be the first time on the planet, not just in South Africa, where a person is charged with inciting others to terrorism based on social media. Now, if you’re going to build a case based on Instagram or based on Twitter, which we now call X, or based on Facebook. If you’re going to do that, you need to have all the evidence in a format that can be stuck before the court in a way that there can be no doubt that what you’re putting before the court is the real deal.
Now, it’s all very well for somebody like myself to say we forensically downloaded this and we forensically downloaded that. And then what happens? Do I become the state’s only witness? So I think although I’d be happy to testify against this woman because I see her as prime evil – and she’s made plenty of public racial comments about myself, I believe that it would be much better if she’s prosecuted based on solid evidence that the state have put together.
You cannot in five minutes put together a solid case like this. If one thinks about, for example, Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, all of the, shall we call it the servers where all the data is held, most of it is held in the United States of America. Now,…
Paul O’Sullivan (06:12.128)
…if I have a Twitter account, which I don’t, but if I have a Twitter account and I go onto my Twitter account using my cellular phone, when I go onto that Twitter account, that Twitter account of mine would not only just keep a record of what I load onto the account, it would also have the IP address…of the device, whether it’s a computer, because some people may have their cell phone matching a computer. And every time you’re active on the account, it will keep the IP address. From the IP address, we can work out your location, your geographical location, and it will have details of how you log on, whether you do it with facial recognition or fingerprint or you bring in a password, it will have all that information every time you log on. It will have details of who you are because you’ve created an account. When you create the account, are verification processes used.
So if you use an email account, it will verify your email. If you’re using your cellular phone number, will verify that by sending you a one-time password to verify that. So you have what we would call then a chain of evidence. Now that chain of evidence is not theoretical. It has to be proper evidence.
So where is the best place to get a chain of evidence relating to somebody’s activity on Instagram or on Twitter or as X as we call it now? Well, there’s only one place to get it unless you get the device. So if they’re doing it from a cellular phone and you get the cellular phone, if you get the cellular phone itself, you can download…
Paul O’Sullivan (08:17.1)
…and there you’ve got hard evidence. But let’s say you want to do it without getting the cellular phone. The only other way to do it is through what we call an MLA. That’s a Mutual Legal Assistance request, which is done through Interpol.
So what happened? The South African Police within South Africa, they have a section which is the Interpol section and they are South African police officers. They’re on the payroll of the South African Police Service, but they’re performing a duty in terms of the Interpol regulations. Now, Interpol is a body of the United Nations. I think there’s 187 countries which are signatories to Interpol. And the way it works is the Interpol officers in Pretoria, because that’s where they’re based, would receive requests for mutual legal assistance from a police station or a provincial office in the police, which would be endorsed by the prosecution service and an investigation. And either it goes through Interpol or it goes government to government through the prosecution service. And I very much suspect that this would have been done through Interpol. And then Interpol would have made an application; starting at Pretoria, it would have gone to Washington and Washington would have liaised with the Department of Justice in the United States and they would have liaised, I can’t remember which city Twitter are based in, but they would have liaised, well, probably before Elon Musk bought it, they would have liaised with somebody that would have gone through probably the FBI.
And if you look at the Interpol regulations, you can’t do a Mutual Legal Assistance request just because a person went on social media and said he doesn’t like you. They will see that as petty. Even if a person is involved in criminal activity, it has to be very serious criminal activity…
Paul O’Sullivan (10:37.868)
…before mutual legal assistance requests will be accepted through Interpol. And there’s a list of the crimes that they talk about there, kidnapping, murder, terrorism, money laundering, drug trafficking, human trafficking. So they would have had to put that request through. That’s not a five minute job. It would take probably several months to put together to do it properly.
And we were not involved in anything of that nature. And this is assumptions I’m making by the way, because we’re not that close to what’s been going on after we opened the docket three and a half years ago. Quite often what we do is we like to fuse and then we stand back and wait and that’s the case here.
So they would have then got eventually to the head office of Twitter. Twitter will have then, they will now, it will be more difficult since Trump has now reneged, cancelled a lot of the mutual, he’s much more in favour of freedom of speech. Although, to be honest with you, I think where it’s terrorism involved, he would probably not try and block it. And they have a legal obligation.
So, a order would be issued probably in Washington, but it could be in the state where Twitter are based. The court order, and it’s all done in secret. It’s not done publicly. Twitter would then be served with a copy of the court order, and they would then sit and do whatever has to be done – and then they would supply it back to the Interpol office, which would be run by the FBI in the United States, and then they would sort of supply it back to the Interpol office in Pretoria, and they would look at it and say, oh, hang on a minute, we need to fix this, this is wrong, this needs… So there’s an iterative process that needs to be followed, and eventually they get their ducks in a row.
Paul O’Sullivan (12:33.89)
And then they probably say, okay, well, we can now proceed with this matter. I would rather, in a case like this, I would rather see the state spend an extra year to get their ducks in the row and do it properly than to rush into it and it gets kicked out of court – and then it’s finished, it’s over with, because the Constitution makes it clear that you cannot be tried twice for the same offense. So you have to get it right first time, and if you don’t get it right first time, it becomes history. And I’m obviously not going to mention what I hope to see, but I hope to see the state with a successful prosecution there.
Chris Steyn (13:22.782)
Well, her advocate, Dali Mpofu, says they plan to bring a case of malicious prosecution against the state over this because she believes that this case against her is aimed at settling political scores with her father.
Paul O’Sullivan (13:39.566)
Well, that could be the case, but I mean, at the end of the day, it’s probably early days for them to jump to conclusions. I know Dali Mpofu quite well. Quite often we do speak. I obviously won’t be speaking on this matter with him because we instigated the original investigations. Although…now, I say we triggered the initial investigations. At the time, if I look at the communication we had with Shamila Batohi, she made it clear that they’d already put a…team together. So it could well be that actually what we did is immaterial, but we made it clear that something had to be done and something now has been done.
And I mean, if they are successful with this prosecution, and there’s a conviction. I don’t think this lady will be looking at a fine. I think she’ll be looking at doing some prison time. And it may just send out a very clear signal that if you want to incite people to commit crimes, such as murder and looting and burning buildings and trucks on social media, that you actually are going to be charged with a serious offense of inciting terrorism because actually what was going on in those days, South Africans, we have very short memories. We tend to put these things out of our minds, but actually at the time, it was horrific what was going on. It was shocking. My PA, it was school holidays at the time. I don’t know if you remember, it was July holidays, and my PA and her sister with the children were down at the seaside and they were stuck at the seaside because the main trunk roads, the freeway from Durban to Johannesburg was closed. At Mooi River, they were burning trucks on the freeway. They were stoning cars. Because this woman didn’t only incite violence, she incited racial hatred. She kept referring to white minority capital, sorry, white monopoly capital.
Paul O’Sullivan (16:00.366)
She was saying that, we’re Black people, we don’t own anything. We own nothing. Everything’s owned by white people, which I don’t think is strictly true. It may have been true 40 years ago, but today I don’t think that’s the case.
Chris Steyn (16:15.998)
But Paul, don’t you fear that should she be successfully prosecuted, that that could ignite, reignite the flames of violence again, just like in the case of her father?
Paul O’Sullivan (16:29.07)
Well, then as a country and as a government, whether it’s a Government of National Unity or whether it’s an ANC government or whatever it is, it’s not in the interest of a government to have what happened in 2021 happen again.
And with the problems that we’ve identified in police Crime Intelligence, we’ve suggested that police Crime Intelligence needs to be dismantled and start again and built from the bottom up so that we have proper Crime Intelligence because clearly what happened at that moment in time, there was a lack of Crime Intelligence. And the reason there was a lack of Crime Intelligence was because a lot of the members of Crime Intelligence were actually working with the criminals and they still have cases that we’re involved in now where there’s Crime Intelligence officers who are involved in crime. And they are producing, you know, actually, if we could get rid of them, it would reduce the crime level immediately because they’re using their police tools to commit crime. So I believe that the strengthening of democracy is necessary.
And that may mean that if she’s going to misbehave in the future, it may mean that they’re going to have to deploy the army and the police in large numbers to immediately quell such a situation from occurring again.
I’m obviously not the prosecutor. I’m not the NDPP. But I did write to the NDPP the other day, and I suggested that it would be worthwhile opposing bail…they didn’t even mention bail. And in my opinion, that is a little bit weak. You charge a person with inciting terrorism, but you don’t oppose bail. You said a precedent
Chris Steyn (18:18.346)
They did not oppose bail.
Chris Steyn (18:33.79)
Maybe there were concerns that it could ignite violence if she were kept behind bars.
Paul O’Sullivan (18:39.994)
Well, if that’s the case, it means that we shouldn’t have charged her in the first place. Because if you can’t take somebody to court and prosecute them without inciting violence, it means the criminal justice system is finished, it’s broken. Or it means only certain categories of people can be prosecuted because others, you’re afraid to prosecute them.
Clearly they’re not afraid to prosecute them because she’s been charged. But no bail conditions.
Chris Steyn (19:18.162)
Released on warning back in the High Court in March, I think, Paul. I just want to take you back to a couple of years ago when she tweeted about you calling you a white racist man involved in the Phala Phala farm gate. What exactly was she trying to say there?
Paul O’Sullivan (19:22.314)
Yeah.
Paul O’Sullivan (19:36.31)
You know, she was, she published the front page of the think it was the Pretoria News or something like that and had a picture of me on the front page of the Pretoria News. And the story was repeating the lies which Arthur Fraser put out there. Arthur Fraser is involved here, by the way, because Arthur Fraser was the man that released Jacob Zuma from prison unlawfully. You know, Jacob Zuma should have done his full time in prison, but Arthur Fraser decided to wait for the right moment and then lay a complaint against Cyril Ramaphosa over the so-called the Phala Phala saga. And in the complaint, he alleged that I tracked down the people that broke in the house so that they could be arrested and tortured. Meanwhile, the first I read about the Phala Phala incident was when I read about it on the front page of the Pretoria News. So I wasn’t involved in any way, shape or form. But the Pretoria News article alleged that I had worked closely with certain police officials and with Cyril. Cyril, I’ve obviously known for many, many years, long, long, long time before the ANC even came into power. We used to meet in various places, and his children used to play with my children – and now I often meet some of his children to give them advice and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, Cyril did not phone me and tell me, listen, somebody swiped $500,000 or whatever the amount was, can you please help us catch them? I never got any phone call from any police officer saying, Cyril’s house got broken into, can you help us catch them? I wasn’t involved in any way, or form, had no knowledge of it, none whatsoever.
Paul O’Sullivan (21:47.338)
So my take on her tweet, her tweet itself is defamatory. But in the eyes of this lady, I mean, I have no doubt that Duduzile Zuma Sambadla is a psychopath. And that comes through in her tweets. No matter what she does to conceal it.
I have no doubt that she’s a psychopath and if she wants to sue me for calling her a psychopath, she’s welcome to do so. But the reality of the situation is in the mind of somebody like her, everybody that doesn’t look like her is a racist. She’s got a particular style about her.
She can’t even speak Zulu. She has to get people to do the speaking for her because she was brought up in an English speaking environment and English is her only language. And I’m just wondering, well, hang on a minute, if you want to be more African than you are, why don’t you at least learn to speak Zulu instead of criticizing everybody that doesn’t look like you?
I’m the way I look because it’s the way…God made me. I was born the way I was born. I grew up in the west of Ireland. I didn’t see a black person until I was about 14 years of age. We didn’t have TV and stuff. I didn’t even know what a black person looked like. I’d heard about it. We’d seen pictures in books, but I had no idea what a black person looked like and I saw one and I wanted to touch to see was his skin the same as mine. So I certainly wasn’t brought up in an Apartheid family with Apartheid feelings and I have many friends who are black or white or Greek or Turkish or Indian. For somebody that doesn’t even know me to call me a white racist. In her mind, everybody who’s white is racist.
Paul O’Sullivan (23:57.644)
But the reality is that if she projects herself like that, what she absolutely doing is she’s demonstrating that she, she is the one that’s racist. And that’s why she keeps talking about white, white monopoly capital. And she wants to see the country fail. She wants to see this country fail. And if she’s left to her own devices, the country would fail. And in my opinion, it’s shocking. I feel aggrieved at the fact that I’m paying her salary.
I just can’t believe that this woman is taking a million rand or whatever it is an MP gets a million rand or one and a half million rand a year salary, which is paid for out of my taxes. I think it’s an absolute disgrace, and that applies to a number of the people in the MK party.
And it’s no wonder that they seem to have lost the password to their bank account because all the money they got from having all these representatives in provincial and national parliament, all that money seems to have vanished. I don’t know what they’re going to do for the rest of the year because they still got to have people with salaries and whatnot. I don’t know how they work, but… to be frank with you, if somebody like her insults me, it makes me feel I’m doing my job properly.
Chris Steyn (25:20.212)
Thank you. That was forensic investigator, Paul O’Sullivan speaking to BizNews after former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla appeared in court today for allegedly inciting violence during July 2021 riots. Thank you, Paul, and I’m Chris Steyn.
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