Nyali Member of Parliament (MP) Mohamed Ali has won a suit against Radio Africa Group’s, The Star newspaper.
The judgement delivered by Resident Magistrate S. Gitonga found that the publication had misrepresented the facts in a story which was carried on their March 10, 2018 edition.
The story alleged that the legislator had been involved in the embezzlement of money in the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) kitty.
The publication as well as the author of the article denied malicious intent in the publication of the article, claiming that the words were not meant to be understood in a “defamatory manner either in their natural and ordinary meaning or by innuendo”.
Magistrate Gitonga’s ruling took into account that the publication issued a correction and also sought clarification from Moha Jicho Pevu but ordered them to pay for the damages caused by the initial publication.
“…the Plantiff was afforded a right of reply and a clarification was published on 11th and 12th May 2019, whic sought to make clarifications and directly apologize to the plaintiff, and taking into consideration the provisions under Section 16 A of the Defamation Act Cap 36 of the Laws of Kenya, I award the Plaintiff a sum of Sh1,000,000.00 as general damages for the tort of defamation,” the judgement read in part.
Commenting on the court’s ruling, the former KTN reporter stated: “The story was found to have been defamatory. For the young upcoming Journalist deal with the facts like we did.”
