KING, GOVT ENGAGE SA LAW FIRM OVER ‘ZWEMART’ STORIES

MBABANE – Stories allegedly written by Zweli Martin Dlamini (popularly known as Zwemart) are under scrutiny as the King and government have engaged the services of a South Arican law firm to deal with them.

According to an email leaked to this publication, the Office of the Attorney General (AG) has hired a South African law firm, Brian Kahn Inc Attorneys, to deal with Swaziland News and its Editor, Zweli, for publishing critical articles about the King in his personal capacity and government. In an email dated February 22, 2021, addressed to Zweli from the law firm, the attorneys stated that they were acting on behalf of the King in his personal capacity as the Head of State, the Eswatini Government and various stakeholders; being ministers and other public officials.

Stakeholders

“The office and person of His Majesty King Mswati III (the ‘Head of State’), as well as Eswatini Government and various stakeholders being ministers and other public officials (‘the Eswatini Government’, collectively referred to as ‘our clients’ each of whom have rights separate and distinct from the others and any reference to our clients is intended to refer to them disjunctively and conjunctively) have approached Brian Kahn Inc (‘BKI’) to act on their behalf,” reads the emailed letter in part. The lawyers allegedly stated that their clients, who include the King, had been reading and monitoring articles written and published by Zweli; the Head Editor of the publication in various articles, some of which cannot be stated because they are considered defamatory in their nature.

The government, through the lawyers, demanded that the publication should at least give them three days to respond before publishing anything alleged by the publication about the King and government through the office of the Government Spokesperson, Sabelo Dlamini, and his deputy. The attorneys stated that the articles were published through Avuleka Amazulu (PTY) Ltd which allegedly hosted the Swaziland News website. According to the letter from BKI, the Swaziland News and Dlamini (Zweli) have on an ongoing basis published artices that were materially false, defamatory, unsubstantiated and caused reputational harm to their clients. The lawyers listed about seven articles which were allegedly defamatory to both the King and government dating back to August 1, 2020, among others. One of the articles, according to the email or letter, alleged that the authorities had defrauded the nation of billions in a multi-billion mineral deal where the financial documents were currently hidden in this (Times of Eswatini) publications’ servers.

Reputation

The lawyers stated that it was evident that Swaziland News and Zweli intended to injure the reputation of their clients in their character, trade, business profession or office to expose them to eminity, ridicule and contempt. It was reported that the articles reflected badly or negatively on the King and government. On paragraph 2.6.1, the attorneys stated that the articles affected the moral character such as imputing dishonesty, a commission of crime, association with criminals, unethical or unprincipled behaviour, grave misconduct, immorality and or unchastity. It was stated that this was on the character of the office, profession, occupation and political character.

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