The hearing for the suit in which finance deputy minister Maureen Hinda-Mbuende is demanding N$1 million for alleged defamatory Facebook posts by Affirmative Repositioning leader Job Amupanda, will be heard in five months’ time.
Yesterday, Windhoek High Court judge Collins Parker said the court is available from 7 – 11 August to hear the defamation suit.
He further noted that should there be a change in the hearing dates, the parties involved will be informed.
In the suit, Hinda-Mbuende claims Amupanda’s social media post on 28 July 2021 was defamatory and caused damage to her reputation.
Amupanda allegedly posted a picture of a woman clad in jeans and a white t-shirt. The picture was accompanied by the wording, “It looks like deputy minister of finance Maureen Hinda during the liberation struggle. Maureen was soo WizWiz. It’s like she won’t think twice about taking a knife out!.”
Hinda-Mbuende claims the post was meant to be understood by the public that the woman in the picture in her youthful days was a street girl ready to fight at a moment’s notice.
She also claims the post is stereotypical in that her being Damara would not hesitate to stab anyone. In addition, the post is meant to be understood that she has no integrity, is a violent person capable of causing anyone bodily harm, is an uncouth woman who was of loose moral values during the liberation struggle, not a law-abiding citizen.
She further noted that the post paints her as a person who is unable to be trusted with public office, as she was violent and capable of causing bodily harm to someone.
Hinda-Mbuende also did not take lightly Amupanda’s other posts he made after she filed a suit against him.
In her amended notice, Hinda-Mbuende makes reference to his Facebook post on 19 January 2022 containing a picture of a newspaper article titled ‘Hinda sues Amupanda for N$1 million’.
The image was captioned “The consequences of rejecting the sugar from the mommy!”
On the same day, he allegedly took to Twitter, and said “It all started with rejecting the sugar for the mommy!”
On 20 January 2022, amongst other posts, Amupanda allegedly made another post stating “Etondo lyaantu lyaNehale is not for sale”, accompanied by a newspaper posting.
Etondo lyaantu lyaNehale is a nickname Amupanda has given himself referring to himself as a man of “testicular fortitude”. Based on this post, Hinda-Mbuende claims that Amupanda maliciously made those posts after she sued him.
She claims the tweets were meant to portray her as a cougar who desires younger men, an uncouth woman of loose moral values who wanted to buy sex from Amupanda.
Furthermore, the posts were meant to portray her as a vindictive woman who now, as a result of being rejected by Amupanda, is suing him.
Thus, during the hearing, issues to be determined are; whether or not the statements made by Amupanda defamed and caused harm to the minister’s reputation and dignity; were the statements truthful and amount to fair and reasonable comment and whether or not they were intended to defame Hinda-Mbuende.
Amupanda has since denied defaming the minister.
In his witness statement filed in the High Court, Amupanda said it was never his intention to portray the deputy minister as a “cougar” who has a “penchant for younger men”.
He said he regards the deputy minister’s advances as a “human desire to be proximate to another and nothing more”. “However, it appears that my refusal to be in proximate with her did not quite sit well and it appears that it also disqualified me from making jest commentary in honour of her heroic liberation struggle credentials,” said Amupanda.
Amupanda is however, adamant that Hinda-Mbuende made advances toward him at the time he was part of the Swapo Party Youth League.
Amupanda said the version presented by Hinda-Mbuende is one-sided. He said what is before the court is a politician who seeks to use the court to settle political scores by presenting an inaccurate and skewed picture to it.
For the hearing, Amupanda has opted not to call any witnesses while Hinda-Mbuende will have four witnesses to strengthen her case.