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Africa Subsaharan
Grace sues over diamond story
2010-12-17
[Al Jazeera] The wife of Bob Muggsy Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, has filed a suit against a newspaper demanding $15m for publishing leaked US cables on her alleged involvement in illicit diamond trading.
"Just because some flunky at the embassy wrote it doesn't mean it's true. It's not like they're journalists."
Last week The Standard newspaper, quoting a 2008 cable sent by the US ambassador to Harare, reported that Grace Mugabe had profited from illegal diamonds mining. The cable to Washington that was leaked by whistleblower website WikiLeaks said Zimbabwe's first lady gained millions of dollars from diamond mining in the Marange district of eastern Zimbabwe.

State-owned Herald newspaper on Wednesday said Grace Mugabe filed the defamation suit against The Standard demanding damages over the article.

The allegations cover a period before the formation of a unity government between Mugabe, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister, in February 2009.

In the high court papers filed on Thursday, Grace Mugabe said the story was false and malicious and that readers of the paper would believe it.

"This is an imputation of criminality and association with violations of human rights
... which are not the same thing as individual rights, mind you...
. Whatever it [The Standard] prints is regarded as gospel truth by those people in Zimbabwe and abroad.

In the summons Grace Mugabe said the allegation has tarnished her credibility as "a person of such high standing" in the minds of all "right thinking" people.

George Chikumbirike, Mugabe's lawyer, said the article wrongly portrayed Grace Mugabe as corrupt in that "she used her position as the First Lady to access diamonds clandestinely, enriching herself in circumstances in which the country was facing serious foreign currency shortages".
Posted by:Fred

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Posted by: SteveS   2010-12-17 02:23  

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