National People’s Party leader Joice Mujuru has been slapped with a $5 million lawsuit for allegedly claiming that Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) founding members Rugare Gumbo and Didymus Mutasa solicited for sexual favours from her.
Source: Mujuru in hot soup over ‘queen bee’ remarks – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 9, 2017
BY CHARLES LAITON
Mutasa and Gumbo have finally approached the High Court demanding $2,5 million each from Mujuru for making the allegation after she spurned an earlier demand to retract her statements.
The two claim Mujuru’s statements, made in Masvingo last month, were deliberately uttered to “defame and injure” their reputation.
According to the two, the occasion which gave rise to the lawsuit was on February 11 this year when Mujuru, while addressing ZimPF structures in Masvingo, uttered remarks concerning Gumbo and Mutasa, saying: “I want you to google, then advise each other. They said Mai Mujuru, we want you to be our queen bee. I was supposed to mate with all men in the party. I was supposed to be their wife.”
Mujuru was meeting the Masvingo structures soon after firing Mutasa, Gumbo and five others from ZimPF on allegations of plotting to unseat her.
In their combined declaration, Gumbo and Mutasa said: “The statement was understood by the addressees and was intended by the defendant (Mujuru) to mean plaintiffs (Gumbo and Mutasa) are unfaithful and immoral in the following respect: That the plaintiffs asked the defendant to engage in sexual activities with multiple men for political benefit; that the plaintiffs asked the defendant to engage in animalistic like orgies; that the plaintiffs asked the defendant to engage in cultic sexual relations for the transfer of leadership skills.”
Gumbo and Mutasa further said after Mujuru made the alleged statement, on February 15 this year, an article was published on the front page of NewsDay under headline entitled Bigwigs wanted to sleep with me: Mujuru, and, above all, they were in possession of Mujuru’s audio recording addressing provincial structures in Masvingo.
“The said words, in the context of the article, are wrongful and defamatory of the plaintiffs in that they were intended to be understood by readers of the newspaper and ZimPF party structures in Masvingo to mean expressly and impliedly, that: The plaintiffs are immoral, lack integrity, are profligate and are debaucherous,” they said.
“The defendant knew fully well at the time she uttered the words that the plaintiffs desired no such activity from her. Her words were malicious and deliberately intended to tarnish the plaintiffs’ reputation and standing.
“As a result of the defendant’s utterances, there have been disturbances in the plaintiffs’ families, and the plaintiffs’ standing as former ministers, statesmen, high public figures and liberation war fighters has been diminished and soiled locally, regionally and internationally.”
Gumbo and Mutasa said notwithstanding their demand for a retraction by February 24, 2017, Mujuru had refused to withdraw the alleged statement.
By yesterday, Mujuru had not yet responded to the summons.
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