Kasukuwere, Moyo sue Daily News for $40m – DailyNews Live

via Kasukuwere, Moyo sue Daily News for $40m – DailyNews Live 17 October 2014

HARARE – Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, and his Environment counterpart, Saviour Kasukuwere, have issued similar summonses against the Daily News for $20 million each for reporting on the Harare media conference by Hurungwe West legislator Temba Mliswa a fortnight ago.

Mliswa accused the two politburo members of being “gay gangsters”.

The media conference was attended and reported on by virtually all of Zimbabwe’s major media houses, including State newspapers such as The Herald, with its contents were uploaded on YouTube and are awash on social media long before print media carried the story the following day.

The two Cabinet ministers have since issued similar lawsuits for alleged defamation against Mliswa himself and the NewsDay newspaper, as the factional and succession wars in Zanu PF have taken a violent turn over the past few weeks.

Before the summonses reached the Daily News yesterday, State broadcaster ZBC had reported two weeks ago that it had it “on good authority that two more publications will be sued for alleged defamation by the same Cabinet ministers in the next few days”.

An ANZ spokesperson said last night that the company respected the right of the ministers to issue the summons.

“While we are a little surprised by the action, we fully respect the right of the ministers to mount these legal processes and we will, of course, defend the cases,” the spokesperson said.

There was no indication at the time of going to Press last night that the two Cabinet ministers intended to sue State media such as The Herald which also covered Mliswa’s open media conference.