Mpumalanga news outlet ordered to retract articles making allegations against justice minister

A Mpumalanga-based news platform has been ordered to retract articles alleging that minister of justice, Ronald Lamola, influenced the prosecution process of Bongani Bongo for political gain.

Online publisher, 013NEWS Mpumalanga’s stories, dated October 24 and November 17, labeled the widely publicised fraud and corruption proceedings against Bongo, South Africa’s former minister of state security, as corrupt.

It alleged that Lamola pushed prosecutor, Henry Nxumalo, to postpone the case. This, it wrote, was done to bar Bongo from contesting in this month’s ANC leadership battle in which Lomola is a candidate for deputy president.

Lowvelder has reported extensively on the case against Bongo and several co-accused, who are alleged to have inflated land prices in a deal that lost the Department of Human Settlements more than R120m.

When 013NEWS’s allegations against Lamola were published in connection with the Bongo case, he sued it for defamation and applied for a interdict against the media entity.

Lamola submitted statements under oath denying the veracity of their stories.

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“I take exception to any suggestion or attempt to taint the integrity of the NPA’s work by making reckless and unsubstantiated allegations against me or any member of the NPA,” he declared.

On Tuesday December 6, Judge Henk Roelofse granted an interdict declaring the contents of 013NEWS’ news reports false and unlawful, and found that it infringed on Lamola’s constitutionally protected right to dignity.

Roelofse gave the news provider 24 hours to apologise to the justice minister, and to declare that it had “no valid basis whatsoever for asserting that Minister Lamola is involved in the prosecution of Bongani Bongo’s matter”.

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An apology dictated by Roelofse has since been published on www.013.co.za.

Roelofse’s judgement concluded that portions of the matter that had not been finalised, would be subjected to case management procedures.