Augur Investments has applied for the dismissal of Tendai Biti and MDC Alliance’s plea to have the court stop them from paying the company US$1 million defamatory damages.
The demand comes after the MDC Alliance and Biti reportedly
defamed the company on social media.
Biti and the MDC Alliance have both been cited as the first
and second respondents respectively and are alleged to have posted defamatory
messages on their official Twitter handles.
In summons filed before the High Court, the applicants are
Augur Investments, Ken Sharpe and Tatiana Aleshina who are the first, second
and third plaintiffs in that order.
They allege that Biti, who is the MDC Alliance vice
president, and his party scandalised their good standing over Harare Airport
Road tender through tweets. They are seeking for an order for the removal of
the tweets posted on December 4 and 13 and on later dates in which Biti tried
to implicate them of wrongdoing in the Harare Airport Road project and for Biti
and MDC Alliance to issue a retraction and apology in three newspapers.
Augur argued that the tweets portrayed them in bad light as
they alleged that they were involved in fraudulent transactions and stole land
from the City of Harare.
It is now seeking for Biti’s special plea in bar thrown out
as the company argued that Biti and MDC Alliance have a case to answer.
“Having made such tweets attributed to him and not
disputed, the first defendant cannot hope to convince the court that
nevertheless the first plaintiff lacks assets or other forms of security,” said
Augur.
“The first defendant bent to ward off the action and not
proceed to the merits of the matter, has not taken up the offer and arranged
for assessment of such costs. As the matter stands, first defendant has put the
cart before the horse which demonstrates its bad faith. For those reasons, the
court is urged to exercise its discretion in dismissing the special plea for
want of merit.” Herald
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