BY CHARLES LAITON
Defence deputy minister Victor Matemadanda has been taken to court by fellow war veteran, Amos Sigauke who is claiming $400 000 damages for criminal defamation.
Sigauke recently issued summons against Matemadanda, accusing him of soiling his character through a newspaper article published in a local daily in July this year.
He claimed Matemadanda accused him and his pressure group, War Veterans Pressure Group (WVPG) of being sponsored to destabilise President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
“The statements were made with the intention to defame plaintiffs and to injure their respective reputations. As a result of the defamation, plaintiffs have jointly and severally the one being injured the other to suffer, been damaged in their reputation and they have suffered damages in the sum of $400 000.”
“The statements by the defendant are wrongful and defamatory to the plaintiffs. The statements were understood by the addressees and were intended by the defendant to mean that plaintiffs are dishonest and without morale fibre in that they associate themselves with rapists. Additionally, the statements by the defendant were understood by the ordinary reader to depict that plaintiffs are engaging in acts to subvert a constitutionally elected government through unconstitutional means,” Sigauke said.
In the same summons, Sigauke is also claiming interest at the prescribed rate from the date of judgement to the date of full and final payment, as well as 10% collection commission in terms of the Law Society of Zimbabwe.
The matter is pending.
