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Thursday, February 7, 2008 - Web posted at 6:34:08 GMT Tabloid owner sticks to guns in libel case THE founder and managing director of the Trustco group of companies yesterday defended an article that was published in his group's Informanté weekly, which has since resulted in Windhoek Mayor Matheus Shikongo suing Trustco and the paper's editor and printers for N$300 000. |
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On the second day of a High Court trial on a defamation claim that Shikongo has lodged against Trustco Group International, Informanté editor Max Hamata and the company printing the free weekly tabloid, Free Press Printers (FPP), Trustco group Managing Director Quinton van Rooyen told Judge Louis Muller that he remained convinced about the correctness of the article that so offended Shikongo. "In my view I'm totally satisfied that Mr Hamata acted correctly. That's why the group decided to defend this matter," Van Rooyen told the Judge. He was testifying in connection with a story that was published under the headline "Fincky aids Broederbond's land cause" in Informanté's edition of September 21 2006. Shikongo is claiming that the article stated things like that he was "connected to a Broederbond cartel" and had been involved in "an irregular land deal", and that the story was understood to mean that he was dishonest, abused his position as Mayor of Windhoek, that he neglected his duties to the public, and that he abused his supposed position as a board member of Bank Windhoek. Shikongo had in fact been a board member of Capricorn Investment Holdings, the holding company of Bank Windhoek, and not of Bank Windhoek itself, as was initially reported in the article. Trustco, Hamata and FPP are defending the case that Shikongo has lodged against them. In a plea filed with the court, they are denying that the article was wrongful or defamatory. They have also pleaded that the facts in the article were essentially the truth and published in the public interest, and that any comment in it was made fairly and reasonably on matters that were in the public interest. Shikongo's libel suit is the first such case against Informanté to actually go on trial, Van Rooyen told Judge Muller. He said Hamata's brief as editor of the paper was very clear: he has editorial freedom, but once questions arise about stories published in the paper, he has to be able to prove where the story came from and that it was the truth. "Our position is as long as it's the truth and in the public interest we'll defend it vigorously," Van Rooyen said. The article that led to the defamation action by Shikongo was discussed at great length by the Trustco Group Executive Committee after threats of legal action were received from Shikongo's lawyers, and having heard Hamata's explanation for the story and seen a document on which it was based, Trustco's management was satisfied that the article was correct and correctly published, Van Rooyen said. In his view, said Van Rooyen, Hamata was totally justified in writing the article. "We've considered our position and we could find nothing wrong with what Mr Hamata did, the way he did it and what he produced," he said. The article dealt with a transaction in which Wanderers Sport Club in Windhoek was allowed by the City of Windhoek to subdivide and sell land that it had previously, back in 1973, bought from the City at a subsidised price of R1 172,22. When this land was subdivided and sold for a housing development of N$40 million, the Windhoek City Council was not advised that, in terms of the original sales agreement with Wanderers, the City had a right to exercise a first option to buy the land, with the result that the City potentially lost out on itself making millions of dollars from that land, it was reported. Van Rooyen conceded that the document on which the story was based made no reference to the Broederbond - the secret Afrikaner nationalist society that wielded extensive influence and power in the apartheid state in South Africa - or to Shikongo. However, Shikongo is a member of the Windhoek City Council and the Mayor of the city, and as such was involved in a City Council decision to approve the subdivision and sale of the land by Wanderers, Van Rooyen said in his testimony. In cross-examination one of Shikongo's lawyers, Dr Pieter Henning, SC, pointed out to Van Rooyen that the City Council had agreed on June 30 2005 that the land may be subdivided and sold by Wanderers, but with various conditions attached. Two of these conditions were that N$2,137 million had to be paid to the City after the rezoning, while an endowment of 7,5 per cent of the value of the additional erven created by the subdivision also had to be paid to the City. That was not stated in the article, though. It still appears from the document on which the article was based that at least some of the City's departments, such as its legal department, did not agree with the decision to allow Wanderers to subdivide and sell the land, Van Rooyen responded. The way the sales transaction and development was done, though, still reminds him of a deal that was carried out using Broederbond-style tactics, Van Rooyen indicated. Said Hamata himself when he explained the reference to "Broederbond land deal" in the story's headline and to a "Broederbond cartel" in the article's first paragraph to Judge Muller yesterday: "I derived the Broederbond connection in much more of a 'brotherhood' sense. 'You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours'.". Hamata said he was prompted to use the "Broederbond" description by a condition in the original sale agreement between the City and Wanderers Sport Club - a document dating from 1973, when apartheid still reigned supreme in South Africa and Namibia - that stated that the land could later only be sold again to white people. When he checked who the principal figures involved in the later sale of the land by Wanderers to property developers Viking Developers were, he realised the same law firm that helped register the bonds over the subdivided properties, Dr Weder, Kruger & Hartmann, was also advising Viking Developers, that a former partner in the firm was the chairperson of the board of directors of Bank Windhoek's holding company, Capricorn Investment Holdings, that Bank Windhoek was financing the property development of some N$40 million, and that Shikongo was also a member of the Capricorn Investment Holdings board of directors, Hamata related. All these links triggered his instinct as a journalist to question this, and he saw it as his role to bring this sort of deal into the public domain, Hamata said. He is set to continue testifying when Judge Muller continues to hear the case today. |
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