Cabinet Ministers Sydney Tigere Sekeramayi and David Parirenyatwa are demanding $20 000 each from Zanu PF supporter Energy Mutodi in defamation damages following a Facebook post published by the former on his face book page.
Their lawyer, Dzikamai Machingura of Machingura Legal Practitioners, claims in the letter that Mutodi’s Facebook post titled “Two Ministers Top Suspects in ED Poison Case” and published on 25 August 2017 contained defamatory statements.
“We have therefore been instructed to demand from you that you immediately and forthwith remove the offending post from your Facebook timeline and pay defamation damages in the amount of $20 000 for our respective clients,” wrote Machingura in a letter dated 30 August 2017..
The ministers are also demanding an immediate and unequivocal public retraction of the defamatory post and words to be published on Mutodi’s Facebook timeline.
They are also demanding an apology to be approved by their legal practitioners which will be published on the Facebook timeline and in two newspapers with nationwide readership.
Machingura said the words in the context of the post “were wrongful and defamatory of our clients (Sekeramayi and Parirenyatwa) and were intended to mean that our clients conspired to poison Honourable Vice President Mnangagwa”.
Machingura further states that the post alleges that the ministers “premeditated the poisoning as the food was brought from Minister Sekeramayi’s home”. He further asserts that Mutodi’s post meant that the two ministers conspired to fabricate false allegations that the VP had been poisoned at a rally by ice cream from Gushungo Dairy.
The Facebook post, according to Machingura, meant that the ministers “abused their specialist knowledge and expertise as medical doctors to pick convenient substance to poison the Vice President” and that they are of “malevolent character with no respect for life”. Dr Sekeramayi and Dr Parirenyatwa are Ministers of defence and health respectively.
The lawyers content that the Facebook post reached a lot of people since Mutodi had 15 604 followers and that it was shared more than 18 times by other users further broadening the viewership of the post.
Mutodi is expected to respond within seven days failure of which the lawyers will institute legal proceedings against him.
Mutodi is facing charges of publishing falsehoods prejudicial to the State emanating from the same Facebook posting. zifmnews.com
