HARARE - During the recent hotly-contested vote for Speaker of Parliament, MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti accused the Clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma Though those allegations were made in March, Zvoma has decided to take legal action now, after Biti refused to apologize or issue a retraction. Zvomas lawyers, Dube, Manikai and Hwacha wrote to Biti on 29 March 2011, instructing him to retract his claims.
The lawsuit was anchored on a report in the March 23 edition of NewsDay, which quoted Biti saying Zvoma has become a willing appendage of Zanu (PF), which is not ready for this election. The lawyers have an audio recording also in which Biti threatened unspecified action against the Clerk for delaying the re-election of the Speaker.
“With respect, the statement is defamatory. We are instructed to demand that you retract the statement and offer an unqualified apology by our client whom has to be placed on the same page of the newspaper concerned, the lawyers demanded.
We trust that you will do the honourable and offer the apology within seven (7) days of the date of this letter, failing which our instructions are to commence civil proceedings, Zvomas lawyers added. But Biti flatly refused to apologise. Since all other options have thus been exhausted, Zvoma’s legal representatives are taking this to court and are asking for no less than $1 million in damages for libel, Zvoma said over the weekend on the sidelines of a parliament media relations workshop in Mutare.
“Biti’s malicious claims are untrue, unethical and unlawful. Not only do they cruelly defame me, they play a cheap trick on the public, making ridiculously false claims on the cover unsupported by anything inside, he said. Biti, on the other hand, who is also Finance minister in the GNU, says he has serious plans to fight this in court, adding that he did no wrong in repeating a well-known fact that the Clerk was a Zanu (PF) lackey.
Post published in: News