The City Press newspaper will not back down on a report exposing an alleged assassination plot against African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma as an elaborate hoax.
”We stand by our story,” the newspaper’s deputy editor, Khathu Mamaila, said on Tuesday, in reaction to accusations that it made the whole thing up.
In a press conference in Durban on Monday, Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust administrator Barnabas Xulu and chief witness in Zuma’s rape trial Reverend Peete Mbambo claimed the story was ”riddled with inaccuracies and untruths which appear to have been manufactured”.
The City Press reported that vagrant Ben Wyland Coetzee was paid R2 000 to claim there was an assassination plot against Zuma.
He was one of six people behind the ”poorly thought-through hoax”.
The newspaper reported that Coetzee had been arrested and had confessed to crime intelligence police in a detailed affidavit.
In a statement, Xulu said neither he nor Mbambo were ”part of any team that is behind the assassination hoax”.
He said: ”If this is what newspaper ethics have sunken to … these journalists should be ashamed to call themselves watchdogs.
”We are saddened by the cavalier way in which this article was assembled and we call upon all journalists to distance themselves from such poor quality and sloppy journalism.”
Mbambo took ”exception to the way in which City Press paints an untruthful picture”. He denied paying Coetzee R2 000.
Xulu and Mbambo ”reserved the right” to sue the newspaper. — Sapa