The Cape Times newspaper was ordered to pay a businessman R100 000 in damages, plus interest, after the Cape High Court dismissed its parent company’s application for leave to appeal against the award.
The appeal was lodged by the Cape Times proprietor Independent Newspaper Holdings Ltd, after a court awarded damages to fleamarket businessman Walleed Suleiman. Suleiman was mistakenly linked to a
pipe bomb blast at the Waterfront Planet Hollywood restaurant in 1997.
Delivering judgment recently Judge Selwyn Selekowitz said it was unlikely that another judge would reach a different conclusion.
Independent Newspapers must now pay Suleiman R152 000, and costs — an extra R548 000.
If the Independent group wishes to pursue an appeal, its next step is to petition the Supreme Court of Appeals, by November 21.
Selekowitz’s award followed a R3-million action launched by Suleiman last year. A photograph of him under arrest at the Cape Town International
Airport, for a passport irregularity, appeared on the front page of the Cape Times. The photograph went with a report that linked him to the Waterfront blast.
Selekowitz rejected the contention by Steve Kirk-Cohen and John Butler, lawyers for the Independent group, that it was possible a different judge would rule the offending report ”possibly true and reasonable”.
The judge said the court papers filed by the Independent legal team did not have much substance. The lawyers failed to allege that the judge had misdirected himself in any way, or that he had
reached the wrong conclusion in his judgment.
They had even admitted during the trial that the offending report was defamatory.
The Independent team lamented that the award of R152 000 was ”huge”.
Selekowitz awarded R90 000 for defamation, and R10 000 for invasion of privacy. However, with interest, the sum was now R152 000 ”because the Independent group did not pay on demand as it could and should have”. – Sapa