19 August 2008
Maputo — The independent daily newsheet "Mediafax" on Tuesday apologised to the President of Mozambique's Supreme Court, Mario Mangaze, over five years after it had carried an opinion piece accusing him of failing to pay land fees on 5,530 hectares of land to which he held title.
The author of the offending piece, Charles Baptista (who writes under the pen name Edwin Hounnou), threatened with a libel suit by Mangaze, has now written a letter of apology admitted that there was no truth in the allegation, published on 15 MAY 2003, and that the fees owing have, in fact, been paid.
Hounnou claims he was induced into error by an article published in the weekly paper "Zambeze", and that his comments "were not intended to offend Dr Mangaze". He wrote the piece "like any other person could have done, based only on the data made available by the report in "Zambeze" - an admission that he had made no attempt to hear Mangaze's side of the story.
Hounnou claims that he had no libelous intention when he wrote the piece, and asks for Mangaze's forgiveness.
"Mediafax" states "in publishing the opinion of Edwin Hounnou, we did so in the belief that he was writing with knowledge of the case"
Having verified, from Hounnou's own letter that this was not the case and that "his opinion piece contains falsehoods", the paper's editorial management also apologises, and regrets publication of the offending allegations.
Hounnou is establishing a track record for rushing into print with allegations that have no evidence. After the December 2004 general elections, Hounnou, writing in "Zambeze" this time, claimed that Francisco Machambisse, the national election agent for the main opposition party, Renamo, failed to submit the party's appeal against the election results on time, because he had taken a bribe of a million dollars from the ruling Frelimo Party.
Machambisse sued Hounnou and "Zambeze", and when the case eventually came to court, in May 2007, Hounnou was found guilty and sentenced to six months imprisonment, converted to a fine at the rate of 20 meticais a day. He was fined an additional 4,200 meticais, bringing the total to 7,800 meticais (about 320 US dollars).
The court had no option in its verdict, since Hounnou could produce no evidence whatever that Machambisse had been bribed. A few weeks before the court case, Hounnou offered Machambisse an apology - which he refused. Machambisse told AIM "They've had two years to apologise, but only now, when it comes to court, do they offer an apology".
The court awarded Machambisse damages, not of a million dollars, but of a mere 80,000 meticais (3,200 dollars). None of that has been paid, because the "Zambeze" director and editor of the time, Salomao Moyana and Lourenco Jossias, appealed, on the grounds that Hounnou had accepted full responsibility for the piece.
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