The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Monday, August 6, 1995 — Comments published in The Chronicle’s letters page suggesting ZBC newsreader Mr Joseph Madhimba looked and sounded like a “grim death’s head” were not defamatory and even if they were, the remark was fair comment, the High Court has ruled in a judgment made available last week.

Mr Madhimba, who is head of television news at ZBC, sued The Chronicle for $20 000 in defamation damages after the letter was published in November 1992. The case was heard by Justice Bartlett in Harare in June this year.

The judge dismissed Mr Madhimba’s claims with costs, meaning that he has to pay the taxed, or approved, costs incurred by The Chronicle in defending the suit as well as all of his own costs.

The passage in the letter to the Editor that Mr Madhimba objected to said: “Joseph Madhimba, who cut his teeth on those dated comments that used to disgrace the Main News in our unrepentant red days, looks and sounds like a grim death’s head. I saw him conducting an interview the other day. He smiled.”

The judgment said Mr Madhimba alleged that the comments were intended to mean that he lacked skill and ability in discharging his duties, that his comportment was revolting, disgraceful and foolish, that he resembled gloom and death, and that he was an unwitting tool of communist forces within the country. Evidence was given during the hearing of the case by Mr Madhimba himself and by the Editor of The Chronicle, Stephen Mpofu.

In deciding whether the remarks were defamatory, before looking at any defence, Justice Bartlett agreed to apply the same test he had set out when deciding in favour of Attorney-General Mr Patrick Chinamasa in his suit against Jongwe Printing and Publishing.

This required the Judge to decide whether the words complained of were, in the way they would ordinarily be understood, be capable of the meaning attributed to them, whether that was the meaning to which they would probably be reasonably understood, and finally whether the meaning was defamatory.