Fees Must Fall activist Bonginkosi Khanyile, who is charged with inciting public violence during devastating riots that swept through KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last year, says he will not be made a scapegoat for the violence and looting.

Khanyile was speaking outside the Durban magistrate's court on Tuesday, where he made a brief appearance. 

He is charged with two counts of inciting public violence and two counts of violating Covid-19 regulations that banned public gatherings and required people to wear masks.

His trial relating to the civil unrest in July last year has been set for August 15.

Senior state advocate Yuri Gangai said they have three videos to lead their evidence and 10 witnesses ready to testify.

However, Khanyile's lawyer Masibonge Mathomane told TimesLIVE they will challenge the authenticity of the videos.

Khanyile told journalists outside court the state was relying on social media videos and that there was no way to prove if they were taken before or after the looting.

“Who knows when those videos were taken? Do you know whether they were taken before, during or after the unrest? You can’t rely solely on a Facebook video. You can say anything in this country but for it to be instigation, I must say something and people act [on what I said].

“Can they say what happened is because of that video? That person would be a pathetic liar.”

He added that the looters were mostly “poverty-stricken people” who are not on social media, not the ones he was addressing on those videos.

“The people who were looting are not online. This thing [looting] was run by people on the ground. Some of those people don’t even have Facebook, some do not even have data.”

Khanyile said the charges against him are “politically motivated gossip” and a ploy by the state to find a scapegoat for the July unrest.

“There is no face for the July unrest and I’m certainly not one. People were unsettled about the Zuma arrest, people are hungry and it was lockdown, but there was also thuggery and opportunism. Combine all those factors and you get the July unrest.”

Khanyile was arrested in Gauteng on August 20. He was released on R5,000 bail in September but was briefly in hot water for not appearing in court in December. He later presented a doctor’s note.

The trial is set down for a week.

TimesLIVE